BLOCK ISLAND –– A former Narragansett fisherman who now works as an engineer for the Block Island ferry was arraigned on drunken-driving charges Tuesday in connection with an early-morning crash that left a coworker dead and two women injured.

Craig P. Huntley, 56, of Tern Road, Narragansett, was identified by the police as the driver of a truck that hit a stone wall and utility pole after leaving the narrow and winding Corn Neck Road at about 1 a.m.

Killed, after being ejected from a rear seat of the truck, was Mitchell Paskins, a 28-year-old native of Australia. Former Block Island Police Chief William A. McCombe, now director of security for Interstate Navigation, the firm that runs the ferry service, said Paskins joined the company only a few days ago as a seasonal employee.

The two women passengers injured in the accident, who have not been identified, were treated and released at the Block Island Medical Center.

According to Police Chief Vincent Carlone, the four occupants of the truck had gone to Settler’s Rock on the north end of the island and were returning to the town’s business area when the accident occurred.

Although Huntley refused a test for alcohol, Carlone said officers felt there was probable cause to charge him with driving under the influence, death resulting, and driving to endanger, death resulting. He was also charged with refusing to submit to a chemical test.

There was a sad irony to the charge — Huntley’s father, Richard J. Huntley, also a retired fisherman, was killed when he was struck by drunken driver 18 years ago on Post Road in East Greenwich.

In arraignment yesterday in District Court in Wakefield, Judge William C. Clifton ordered Huntley held pending payment of $20,000 bail with surety.

Paskins, who moved to Rhode Island from Australia about 10 years ago, had lived in Newport and more recently in Saunderstown. McCombe, speaking as a resident of the island community, said any accident such as Tuesday’s is tragic, but more so when it takes place in a community so tightly knit as Block Island. “Our prayers go out to the families.”

According to Carlone, the fatal accident was the first on the island since 2002, when there were two — one in which a 17-year-old boy crashed on Corn Neck Road and killed his teenage passenger and the other in which a musician killed a fellow band member by driving into him.

— With reports from Journal Staff writer Maria Armental

rdujardi@projo.com