A 20-year old female driver of one vehicle was critically injured in a head-on collision on Highway 11 south of Ellisville, Monday morning, July 9, and a male driver of the other vehicle seriously injured.

At approximately 9 a.m. medical first responders and rescue units from Ellisville Fire Department, Ellisville, Moselle, Union, South Jones and Johnson Volunteer Fire Departments responded to the scene of the accident where a red Ford Mustang was upside down on the side of the road and the 20-year old female driver critically injured and trapped inside. A white Ford F-150 was in the middle of the highway with the driver moderately to seriously injured.

Ellisville Fire Department was the first to arrive and began an extrication process to free the entrapped female. It took 31 minutes to extricate her from the badly entangled wreckage.

Both drivers were taken to Forest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, a trauma II center, by EMServ ambulance service.

According to officials on scene, it appeared that the Ford pickup was traveling south on Highway 11 and was about to turn left onto Tower Road when the Ford Mustang, which was traveling north, topped a hill and collided with the pickup truck head-on.

With the heat and humidity and the difficult extrication procedure, several rescue personnel performing the extrication were treated at the scene for heat exhaustion by EMServ paramedics.

Also responding to the scene were Mississippi Highway Patrol, Jones County Sheriff’s Department, Jones County EMA Director Lance Chancellor, Jones County Fire Coordinator Dan McKenna and Jones County EMA Chaplain Brother Drew Blanton.