WELLAND, Ont. -- Ontario Provincial Police are appealing for the owner of an inflatable air mattress to come forward after a fatal crash involving a motorcycle on Highway 406 in Welland, Ont., Friday night.

OPP media relations officer Const. Rob Visconti said a 55-year-old Fort Erie man was pronounced dead at the scene.

He had been riding with a group of other motorcyclists.

Three other people, two women and one man, were taken to area hospitals with injuries not considered to be lifer-threatening, he said.

Police were not releasing the Fort Erie man’s name on the weekend.

Visconti said the crash took place in the northbound lanes of Highway 406, between East Main Street and Woodlawn Road at about 9:40 p.m.

“There was a vehicle travelling ahead of three motorcycles that lost an inflatable mattress, that was inflated. The first motorcycle attempted to avoid striking the air mattress and went around it.”

Visconti said the second motorcycle, with the Fort Erie man and a female passenger, struck the air mattress. Both were thrown from the bike.

The third motorcycle attempted to avoid the already downed bike, he said, and both the male driver and female passenger were thrown from that bike as they went down, too.

Four Niagara Emergency Medical Services ambulances were dispatched to the scene to treat and then transport the patients to hospital.

Welland Fire and Emergency Services Deputy Fire Chief Adam Eckhart said four fire trucks and nine firefighters responded to the crash.

“There was a three-truck response from the on-duty crews, but they switched it to four,” Eckhart said, adding the additional unit was dispatched due to the nature of the call.

That caused the fire service to active a callback, bringing in off-duty firefighters to man stations in Welland in case of other calls.

Eckhart said the crash scene was spread over a wide area of the highway.

The highway was shut down as OPP investigated the crash. It was reopened shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday.

“We’re appealing for the owner of the inflatable to come forward and contact us, or any witnesses who may have observed the mattress fly off of the vehicle,” said Visconti.

He said witnesses can contact Const. Dave Haywood at the Niagara OPP detachment at 905-356-1311.

dajohnson@postmedia.com

Twitter: @DaveJTheTrib