One dead in turnpike crash

Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

A Maine State Police trooper, back right, examines the scene of a single-car fatal accident on the Maine Turnpike just beyond the Lisbon Street overpass on Thursday evening.

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- Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — One person was dead Thursday night after crashing a car in a construction zone on the Maine Turnpike and flipping the vehicle near Mile 81, police said.

A witness said the driver was traveling in excess of 100 mph with a police officer in pursuit in the northbound lane when the car crashed, flipped onto its roof and caught fire at about 7:30 p.m. The driver was not identified late Thursday night. The car bore Massachusetts license plates.

"It was unbelievable how fast he was going," said Jim Przytulski, whose vehicle was passed by the car seconds before it crashed. "He came flying around me on the right and just missed hitting me."

Przytulski said the car passed him just as the highway was narrowed to one lane by barriers near a bridge over Liberty Mutual on Lisbon Street. He said the car struck a guardrail on the right and bounced into one of the concrete barriers before sailing onto the bridge.

"He kind of careened off both sides," Przytulski said. "He was practically airborne."

The car, a four-door sedan, then flipped onto the side of the road at the northern end of the bridge. Almost immediately, flames and smoke rose from the wreckage.

"I could see two different areas where fire was coming from the engine," Przytulski said. "The trooper ran out and emptied the extinguisher he had with him, but it wasn't enough."

Przytulski said fire crews were there moments later. By then, the car was fully engulfed in flames.

"I could definitely see flames coming up over the firetruck," Przytulski said.

Smoke from the fire could be seen from at least a mile away.

Police and firefighters searched the grassy banks next to the highway on the chance that others in the car had been flung out in the wreck. No one was found.

A section of the northbound lane was closed to traffic as emergency crews fought the fire and police began an investigation. Traffic in the northbound lane backed up for miles with no second lane onto which to divert vehicles.

Two hours after the wreck, more than a half-dozen Maine State Police troopers were at the scene as the investigation got under way. There were no details about the pursuit. Przytulski said he believed the trooper had tried to stop the speeding vehicle a short time before it crashed.

Beneath the underpass, at Liberty Mutual, employees leaving work at about 8 p.m. said they saw something burning, followed by the arrival of fire and police vehicles. They had not been told there was a crash or that a person had been killed.

Przytulski said he was driving to his home in Winslow when he witnessed the crash and almost became a part of it. The car passed his with such velocity that Przytulski said he initially thought his vehicle had been struck.

He later checked for damage and found none.

"He was just inches from taking me out," he said. "I was just amazed at how fast he was going."

mlaflamme@sunjournal.com