A Westville man was critically injured on Thursday morning after losing control of his vehicle on I-94 in Porter County, the Indiana State Police said.

Police identified the man as Luke J. McCormick, 19.

According to police, McCormick was westbound on I-94, at the 21 mile marker near the Burns Harbor exit, when he lost control of his 2001 Pontiac Sunfire on the snowy road surface and spun out in front of a semi-tractor trailer.

The semi struck McCormick’s passenger side, causing the rig to jackknife with the Pontiac still attached to the front end, police said.

Both vehicles left the roadway, traveled through a fence and down a ditch, and came to rest near an access road at the bottom.

McCormick was transported to Porter Regional Hospital, then airlifted to Memorial Hospital in South Bend with life-threatening head injuries, police said.

The trucker, Robert J. Himmerstein, 56, of Lansing, Mich., was not injured.

Police said that McCormick was driving “too fast for existing snow-covered road conditions.”

Police put damage at Himmerstein’s rig at $10,000.

Burns Harbor Police and Fire assisted at the scene.

Posted 1/25/2013