By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

NEW GLOUCESTER – Twilight contributed to an ATV crash Wednesday in a gravel pit off Bennett Road that sent two girls to the hospital with bruises, road rash and at least one broken bone.

The two 14-year-old girls, whose names were not released because they are juveniles, were racing a 16-year-old boy on ATVs about 8:45 p.m. Wednesday. The girls hit a one-foot bump hidden by shadows that sent the ATV 40 feet in the air, according to Maine Game Warden Rick Stone.

Stone estimated the two ATVs were traveling faster than 50 miles per hour.

The passenger fell off. She was wearing a helmet, but didn’t have the chin strap fastened. The helmet fell off, leaving her head and face unprotected.

“It looks like she fell face down, sliding in the dirt,” Stone said. She suffered a broken collarbone, was covered from her legs to the top of her head with road-rash abrasions, and had pieces of gravel in her eyes, mouth and stuck in her braces, he said.

The driver of the ATV bounced once before falling off. She was dragged under the ATV for another 20 feet, Stone said, and covered in abrasions as well. Her helmet stayed in place.

“But she had tire tracks on the side of her legs,” Stone said. “It looked like the machine ran over her.”

It was the second ATV crash Stone responded to Wednesday. Two Lewiston youths were seriously injured about 11:10 a.m. when their ATVs toppled down a large gravel hill on Belanger Farm at Cotton and Pine Woods roads.

A 17-year-old broke his shoulder, collarbone and four ribs and suffered a collapsed lung. A 12-year-old ruptured his spleen in that crash, Stone said. Miranda Pomerleau, 16, the driver of one of the ATVs, suffered bruises.

The victims of both crashes were taken to Central Maine Medical Center, and Stone said he visited them Thursday.

Charges are pending in the New Gloucester crash, Stone said.

“The biggest thing is, the parents have to be responsible,” Stone said. “There is an age they have to be to operate ATVs. They need to go through training courses. And they need to have the landowner’s permission.”

ATV drivers need to be 16 years old or older, under Maine law. The teenagers involved in the New Gloucester crash didn’t have the property owners’ permission to be there, Stone said.