A 77-year-old West Tisbury man was airlifted to a Boston hospital with serious injuries after the car he was driving struck a utility pole and a tree and flipped over on the West Tisbury Road on Sunday afternoon.

David A. Finley will be charged with drunk driving, third offense, on a suspended license, negligent operation, marked lane violation and speeding.

The accident occurred between 2 and 2:30 p.m. just past the West Tisbury police station across from the Mill Pond and forced police, fire and emergency workers to close off the extreme western end of the road for a time on a sunny, summer-like day.

Police said they had been called prior to the accident to be on the lookout for a BMW driving erratically and headed from Edgartown into West Tisbury.

A short time later the town fire rescue team and tri-town EMTs were called to the scene, where Mr. Finley’s 2002 BMW sedan had rolled over and landed on its roof. Rescue personnel used the jaws of life to extract Mr. Finley from the car; he was then transported to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and subsequently airlifted to Boston.

Police said an investigation showed Mr. Finley was traveling west at a high rate of speed when his vehicle went into the east bound lane for approximately 119 feet, hitting a utility pole, a tree and a tree stump before landing back in the road upside down.

West Tisbury police Sgt. Dan Rossi said it was a small miracle that no one else was on the road at the time. “Thank God there was no VTA bus or small children walking on the road; if this had been a Sunday in August it would have been very different,” he said.