Millbrook man killed in car accident

The Millbrook community is mourning the loss of one of its own, 22-year-old Earl Scott Carlin, who died early Sunday morning, July 20, following a fatal one-car accident on State Route 44 at Deep Hollow Road in the town of Washington.Emergency personnel were dispatched by 9-1-1 at roughly 3:20 a.m. following a report of the accident. New York State Police Troopers, firefighters from the Millbrook Fire Department and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) from the Millbrook Rescue Squad and TransCare Ambulance gathered at the crash scene, where Carlin’s badly damaged 2002 Saab had driven off the highway and come to rest by a large tree. According to the state police report, Carlin was trapped inside the vehicle.“Firefighters extracted Carlin from the vehicle,” stated the release. “He had sustained severe head trauma and was pronounced dead at the crash scene.”The job wasn’t easy, made even more difficult by the falling rain and many impediments.“It was a very difficult extrication because we had to cut a number of trees and remove some pieces of fence to extract the vehicle, and that took some time,” said Millbrook Fire Chief Ted Bownas. “By the time we were able to get him out of the vehicle he was deceased.”From start to finish that took rescue workers about 25 minutes.Carlin was the only occupant inside the vehicle.Police believe Carlin was traveling eastbound on Route 44 — a winding roadway — when “he lost control of his vehicle on the wet roadway, crossed over the westbound lane and left the highway. After leaving the highway, the vehicle struck a traffic sign, a ditch and several trees before coming to rest against a large tree.”Bownas said the location of the crash was all-too-familiar to rescue workers.“The road goes around the corner of the intersection of Deep Hollow Road — it’s not an uncommon spot for an accident,” he said, adding it might sound redundant, but it does drivers well to heed warnings about slowing down, especially in poor weather conditions. “We always sound like a broken record, but there’s not much else to say but ‘Take it easy.’”According to Carlin’s Facebook page he was a 2011 graduate of Trinity-Pawling School and a member of the class of 2015 at Virginia Tech, where he was studying mechanical engineering. While he listed his hometown as Millbrook, he listed his current residence as being in the town of Scottsville, Va.It was reported that Carlin was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident. It was also reported that the vehicle’s airbags deployed.At the time of the police report there was no indication whether drugs or alcohol were factors in the crash. A Dutchess County Medical Examiner’s Office investigator responded to the scene of the accident to assist police in their investigation and to remove the body. An autopsy was scheduled to be performed on Monday, July 21; results from that autopsy will be released at a later date.Anyone with additional information about the crash is asked to call the New York State Police Troop K Headquarters at 845-677-7300.