VICTORY - An elderly Victory resident was airlifted by a Mercy Flight helicopter after making a left-hand turn into the path of an oncoming vehicle Friday afternoon.

Edward Hockeborn, 78, of 12228 Upton Road, was listed in serious condition at Syracuse's University Hospital Friday night.

The driver of the oncoming vehicle, Brian Woods, 60, of Rochester, was hauling his boat on a trailer after a fishing trip Friday morning. He was driving his 2006 GMC Sierra pickup westbound on Route 370 in Victory as Hockeborn was reportedly facing east in his 1999 Ford Windstar van, and came to a stop, New York State Police Investigator Frank D'Aurizio said.

Without a signal and “at the last moment, (Hockeborn) turned left on Upton Road,” D'Aurizio said.

The Sierra hit the Windstar on the passenger side, flipping the van onto its roof and turning the pickup around and flinging the boat off the trailer.

A Victory Fire Department ambulance crew was on their way to a medical call when they drove right up to the fresh accident scene, said Ron Dates, an assistant fire chief with the Victory Fire Department.

Hockeborn was “hanging upside down in his car when I got there,” Dates said. An ambulance from the Fair Haven Fire Department took the ambulance call Victory had been on its way to, Dates said.

Hockeborn was in and out of consciousness and was suffering from internal injuries, State Police Trooper Eric Salamone said. Woods was not injured.

State police were dispatched at 12:58 p.m. and got on the scene at 1:07 p.m., Salamone said. The helicopter took off from the field next to the site of the accident at 1:45 p.m.

The white van was flipped over onto its roof and into the ditch at the northwest corner of Upton Road. The van's passenger side was crushed.

The boat trailer was pushed up on one wheel and at a 90-degree angle to the pickup and the boat was flung into the ditch. The pickup's front end was crunched in.

Woods was too shaken up to give an interview. He worried to Salamone about his valuables being stolen as Salamone organized tow trucks to come to the accident scene.

First responders came to the scene from Red Creek and Victory fire departments, the Cato-Ira-Meridian-Victory Ambulance Corps and the Wolcott Area Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

Hockeborn has served on the Victory Town Council.

Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net