One killed, one injured in three separate roadway incidents in Dover

DOVER - Dover and State Police were kept busy on Wednesday responding to three serious accidents, including a fatal crash on Spruce Lane near Corbin Drive around 2:45 p.m.

Killed in the crash was 57-year-old Bruce Whiteley of Dover, who was the only occupant of the vehicle, a 2007 Honda Accord. Whiteley was transported to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital with serious injuries to his chest and legs and died around 4:30 p.m., according to a press release from Dover Police.

While the crash remains under investigation, police believe drugs or alcohol were not a factor in the crash.

Earlier in the day an unidentified Dover man was struck by a tractor trailer on Route 16 in Dover when he got out of his vehicle near the scene of an earlier rollover and walked across the median into the path of a northbound semi.

The rollover occurred around 11:20 a.m. on Route 16 south when State Police say a 2007 Ford Escape, driven by a 16-year-old female from Durham, was traveling south from Route 4 toward Route 16 when it began to merge onto Route 16.

Police believe the driver failed to yield to merging traffic, overcorrected, struck a cement roadway barrier and rolled over onto its roof.

Both the driver and a passenger in the vehicle escaped injury, police say.

As emergency personnel worked the scene, they learned of a man running into nearby traffic.

They later determined that a 39-year-old Dover man had gotten out of the passenger side of his vehicle as it slowly moved southbound approaching the scene of the earlier rollover crash.

The man crossed over into the northbound lanes of travel and was hit by a full-sized tractor-trailer, police said. He was transported to Portsmouth Regional Hospital with serious but nonlife threatening injuries.