2 killed, 4 critically injured in Bancroft, Ont. crash involving motorcycles

Two people were killed and four others are said to have life-threatening injuries following a five-vehicle crash in Bancroft, Ont. on Tuesday afternoon.

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Ontario Provincial Police say officers responded to the collision shortly after 3:30 p.m. to Highway 28, near Otter Lake Road.

The crash involved three vehicles and two motorcycles, provincial police said in a news release.

Two occupants were pronounced dead at the scene.

Two were airlifted to hospital and another two were transported by ground ambulance. All are said to have life-threatening injuries, OPP says.

It's the second multi-fatal crash on the same eight kilometre section of Highway 28 in four days.Two drivers were killed following a three-motorcycle collision in Faraday, near Bancroft, on Saturday.

"It was way worse than what I have seen. You know, we've seen a few accidents here, but, no, it looked pretty serious," Bill Bierworth, who lives on Highway 28 South, told CTV News Ottawa's Dylan Dyson Wednesday.

"And then you had a big helicopter fly in, I think it was from Ottawa. And it landed in the dairy parking lot." 

Bancroft OPP spokesperson, Const. Joel Devenish said the area where the incident happened has increased traffic. 

"It's an area where there’s increased traffic on the weekends because of cottagers and just, coming into a rural area, there's suddenly a lot more dynamics to it," Devenish said.

Owner of Rainbow Auto Glass, Garrett Kemp says the area is also busy.

"It's just busy. Everyone's turning into Kawartha Dairy. I think it's last minute decisions. A lot of people maybe aren't paying attention here, or people are trying to speed past," Kemp said.

Wednesday's crash adds to an already deadly week for motorcycle drivers in eastern Ontario this week, with three fatal collisions, resulting in six other deaths, since July 31.

"Larger spike in collisions come summer time around here, just in general on all the roadways. But specifically 28 has a lot of collisions that happen during the summertime months," Devenish added.

An investigation into the crash is ongoing.

The crash site is located 220 kilometres west of Ottawa.

The victims were not identified.

With files from CTV News Ottawa's Dylan Dyson