Driver Charged in Connection With Death of Teen Who Drowned After Car Plunged Into Snow-Covered Pond

A 21-year-old Massachusetts man who police said drove the car that plunged into a snow-covered pond in Union last winter, killing an 18-year-old woman, has been charged with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle. 

Justin Mcallise, 21, of Southbury, Massachusetts, drove to Bigelow Hollow State Park in Union on the night of Jan. 12, with three friends and the car they were in wound up on a pond and sank, police said. 

Emily Blouin, 18, of Southbridge, Massachusetts, was not able to get out of the car and died. Two other people were able to get out of the car and were treated at Hartford Hospital. 

Mcallise said the group decided to go for a ride at the park and got there around 8:20 p.m., about three and a half hours after the park closed, according to police. 

He said he’d been to the park before, but never at dark and thought he was driving out of the park when the car stopped, the back bumper hit the ice and the car started to sink. 

Mcallise said he told everyone to get out of the car, but the doors would not open, so he opened the windows. 

Blouin, however, was not able to get out through the back windows because they would only open halfway and the car sank quickly underwater, Mcallise said, according to police.

The medical examiner ruled the cause of Blouin's death was drowning.

Mcallise added that he used a friend’s phone and called 911.

Police said toxicology reports indicated THC in Mcallise’s system.

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