CENTER TWP — State police are investigating a three-vehicle crash at Route 8 and Mahood Road that left three people injured, one critically.

The 8:15 a.m. collision, according to officials, occurred when a Ford pickup truck traveling south on Route 8 collided with a Dodge Ram traveling across the road from Unionville Road to Mahood Road.

State police said they suspect the driver of the Dodge truck, a Butler area man, ran the red light.

A Honda Civic traveling north on Route 8 then collided with the Ford truck, said police.

“I couldn’t stop,” said James Eng, 63, of Fox Chapel, Allegheny County, was the driver of the Honda Civic. “I went through the intersection and got hit. I don’t know which one (truck) hit me.”

Eng, who was hit on the driver’s side toward the back, said his car spun counterclockwise. He believes it did at least one complete rotation, ending a short distance from the intersection facing south.

Eng, a professor in the physical therapy department at Slippery Rock University, said he was not hurt.

The Unionville Volunteer Fire Company had to remove the passenger side door of the Ford to reach the two men who were inside. They were taken by ambulance to Butler Memorial Hospital with what officials described as minor injuries. Both men were conscious and talking, according to authorities.

The driver of the Ram was ejected out the driver’s side door and landed on the road.

Brian Birckbichler of Butler Township was at his job as a piping designer at nearby Vavro when he heard the crash.

He said he ran out a side door first to the Honda Civic.

“I flew out the door,” Birckbichler said.

When he realized Eng was OK, he ran to the intersection where the trucks were and, “I was yelling for other (motorists) to call 911. I saw the guy (from the Ram) laying on the road. He wasn’t moving. He was face down.”

Birckbichler said he continued to the Ford truck to make sure they were OK and, “I told them to stay put.”

Then, Birckbichler said, he went back to the man on the ground. Initially, Birckbichler said, he could not find a pulse.

Other motorists stopped to help and set up road flares, while Birckbichler and his co-worker, Mark Korcok of New Brighton, Beaver County, took turns doing chest compressions on the man. They continued CPR until paramedics arrived and took over.

“We did what we could for him,” Birckbichler said.

And Korcok added, “We kept talking to him in hopes of eliciting a response.”

The co-workers said the man never responded to them.

The man was taken by ambulance to Butler Memorial Hospital and later flown by helicopter to a Pittsburgh hospital

Nathan Wulff, chief of the Unionville fire department, said volunteer firefighters from Prospect and Mercer Road assisted as well as the Center Township Road department, and PennDOT.

The road was closed for about two hours.

Eagle Staff Writer Kim Paskorz contributed to this report.