HANOVER — A local teen took a wild ride Thursday for several hundred feet in a muddy drainage ditch off Route 2 when he fell asleep at the wheel, police said.
Med-Care Ambulance crewman Ed Carey, right, checks the head and neck of Matt Morin, 19, of Hanover, whom police say fell asleep while driving west on Route 2 in the 1996 Ford Explorer, at left.
Muddy tracks show the path that a young Hanover driver's 1996 Ford Explorer took early Thursday afternoon. Police say Matt Morin, 19, fell asleep while driving west on Route 2 in Hanover.
Matt Morin, 19, suffered a possible dislocated thumb in the accident that occurred at 1:14 p.m. a short distance from his parents' house, Oxford County Sgt. Tim Ontengco said at the scene.
A Paris dispatcher fielding a 911 call sent Ontengco, Rumford firefighters and Med-Care Ambulance to what was initially thought to be a rollover with injuries.
However, when Ontengco and Rumford fire Deputy Chief Ben Byam arrived, they said they were surprised to find that Morin's 1996 Ford Explorer hadn't rolled at all.
“He was lucky,” Ontengco said. “In that mud, he should have gone end for end.”
He said Morin was wearing a safety belt, which prevented serious injury.
The Ford bounded over a culvert after hitting and bending a metal rod marking the culvert's location before tearing chunks of pavement off the shoulder and regaining the highway with flat front tires.
“For what it went through, it's in surprisingly good shape,” Ontengco said of the sport utility vehicle.
He estimated damage at $1,000.
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