Officials: Driver airlifted from Higgins crash 'fortunate to be alive'

A driver whose car left the roadway and struck a tree Wednesday morning in the Busse Woods Forest Preserve had to be extricated from his vehicle and flown by helicopter to the hospital, authorities said.

And while the man suffered "traumatic" injuries, they were not considered life threatening, said Elk Grove Village Fire Chief Richard Mikel.

"He's extremely fortunate to be alive," Mikel said.

It took emergency responders more than an hour to pull the driver out of his black Subaru, which ended up on its side and wrapped around the tree. The vehicle was heading eastbound on Higgins Road at 6:53 a.m. when it crashed into the tree, police said. There were no passengers in the car and no other vehicles involved.

In most car crashes involving extrication, Mikel said, rescuers cut through the top of vehicles and remove passengers that way. But in this case, they had to remove the floor to gain access to the driver.

"It was an extensive extrication because of the complexities of how he was pinned in the car," Mikel said.

The driver was airlifted at 8:20 a.m. via a Flight For Life helicopter to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

Initially, eastbound lanes of Higgins were closed to traffic between Arlington Heights Road and Interstate 290, but then all lanes were shut down as more rescue equipment was brought to the scene, Mikel said. All lanes reopened before 10 a.m.

Emergency crews from Elk Grove and Schaumburg, the Illinois State Police and the Cook County Forest Preserve responded to the crash.