Two Injured in Car Accident on High Street

Two people were injured - one seriously - after a car drove into a tree on High Street in Fairfield late Thursday.

The driver of a 2002 Mazda Protege, identified by police as Joseph Forte, 23, of College Park Drive in Fairfield, was unresponsive, but breathing, when he was removed from the car after firefighters used the "Jaws of Life" to extricate him. A passenger, Zach Stetson, 23, of Fairfield, was sitting on a wall outside the car when firefighters arrived, according to police and the Fire Department's report. The car had crashed into a tree in the front yard of a home by 522 High St. about 11:03 p.m., according to police and the Fire Department's report.

Firefighters said Forte suffered multiple injuries, including head injuries, and that the passenger, who was conscious, sustained multiple facial injuries.

Police said Forte was driving north on High Street when he failed to negotiate a curve, struck a tree and was thrown into the windshield from the impact of the crash. Witnesses reported the Mazda traveling at a high rate of speed, police said. "We have several independent witnesses who saw the vehicle operating at a high rate of speed, even recklessly, down by Grasmere Avenue prior to the crash," said Police Sgt. Sue Lussier, a department spokesman.

Forte and Stetson were taken by AMR Ambulance Co. to St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport with non-life threatening injuries, according to police and the Fire Department's report.

Police said alcohol may have played a role in the crash.

The crash is being investigated by the Fairfield Police Department.