By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

OXFORD – Moments before Tina Turcotte was hit by a tractor-trailer on the Maine Turnpike last week, Rep. James Hamper, R-Oxford, was exiting the tollbooth in Gardiner. He noticed a green Mustang shooting by on his left, a red truck with “Old Town Canoe” written on the side on his right.

“I had an ill feeling that something was wrong,” Hamper said Friday, one week after the crash that killed Turcotte. He continued driving, but more cautiously than usual.

“I stayed in the right-hand lane,” he said.

Before Turcotte’s sedan was crushed by the rig behind her, Hamper crested a rise in the highway in Hallowell. What was in front of him was a “parking lot” of cars with their brake lights lit, traffic backed up from paving ahead.

“You couldn’t see that far ahead until you crested that little hill,” Hamper said. “When you did, you could see a long line of cars. I had to do some braking pretty heavily.”

Authorities are investigating whether traffic that was funneled because of one closed lane contributed to the fatal crash in which Scott Hewitt’s tractor-trailer crushed Turcotte’s sedan. Turcotte, 40, of Scarborough, died two days later.

Hewitt, 32, of Caribou, was driving his rig without a license and had racked up 42 driving violations and 19 license suspensions. He said later that construction warning signs were so close to the zone that he didn’t have enough time to slow down.

The Maine Department of Transportation said Friday that the stretch of highway has had more traffic jams than anticipated from the paving project. To avoid the kind of “parking lot” that Hamper described, MDOT called off paving Friday afternoon due to heavy traffic, department spokesman Herb Thomson said.

Since the crash, MDOT has placed more signs on the highway and placed them four miles back instead of three, giving motorists more notice of construction ahead, Thomson said.

There have been four other vehicle crashes in the area since the paving began in June, Thomson said. Those four crashes were minor with no reported injuries, he said. That number of crashes near that kind of project is not a high number, Thomson said.

Even if the line of stopped or slowed vehicles contributed to the fatal crash, “the main factor is that this truck driver shouldn’t have been behind the wheel,” Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland said.

‘Happy to be alive’

A week after the crash, Hamper recalled how he and Rep. Bruce Hanley, R-Paris, were carpooling to the State House on July 29. Only the red truck separated their car from Turcotte’s sedan and Hewitt’s tractor-trailer behind her.

Once Hamper crested the hill and saw the line of vehicles, he slowed to 10 miles per hour, keeping a worried eye on the red truck behind him.

“We were still moving, but our distance was closing,” he said. With so much traffic, Hamper grew concerned that the red truck might hit him from behind. “I was driving defensively. I remember planning my escape route.”

He also watched a small Volkswagen in front of him, worried about the safety of the young woman driving the little car.

The next thing, Hamper said, “I heard this wail of tires. I looked in my mirror and saw the red truck sideways.” Hamper said he warned Hanley: “‘This is it.'”

Both braced themselves. “I thought we were going to die,” Hamper said.

The red truck screamed to their right side, crashing into a ditch. The sounds of metal crunching, glass breaking, and tires screeching was all around. “The crash noise continually was going on,” Hamper said.

“The noise was deafening,” Hanley reported. “It sounded like a demolition derby,” both from the red truck crashing into a ditch and Hewitt’s rig crushing Turcotte’s car. The red truck to the side was going up and down, while the front of Hewitt’s truck seemed to be disintegrating. Truck pieces were flying everywhere, he said.

Hamper steered into the breakdown lane. The carnage “flowed around us,” he said.

When he and Hanley got out of their car, they stared at Hewitt’s rig only 10 feet away. Steam rose from the wreckage. It was only then, Hanley said, that he even knew a vehicle was under it.

“I thought, ‘There’s nothing I can do,'” Hamper said. “It was such a mangled mass. I couldn’t even tell where the windows were. I felt totally helpless.”

Immediately, people called for rescue crews and tried to help Turcotte.

Rep. Darlene Curley, R-Scarborough, who is also a registered nurse, was about 20 vehicles back. She described it as the most appalling crash scene she has seen.

“Everyone was stunned, hoping there would be a miracle” and that Turcotte would live, she said.

Hewitt got out of his truck and was walking around, Hanley said. A woman he learned later was Hewitt’s wife was walking around with a towel on her ear. Rescue personnel arrived and began giving oxygen to Turcotte, the legislator recalled.

The young woman in the Volkswagen in front of Hamper was not hurt physically, but “was close to a breakdown,” Hanley said. He said he spoke to her, trying to calm her.

Eventually, police told Hanley and Hamper to leave. They did, but they yearned to learn who the woman was, and if she would live. When they found out she didn’t survive, both wanted to go to her funeral.

“My God, there was a church full,” Hamper said after returning from the Scarborough service Thursday night. Both said they were touched by how people remembered Tina Turcotte’s kindness, her life.

Since July 29, when people greet Hamper with the usual ‘How are you?’ it has a new meaning.

“I say I’m happy to be alive,” he said.

Hanley said he is too. And he’s more cautious on the road. He’s again traveling the Maine Turnpike. Now Hanley said he’s more aware of tractor-trailers in the rearview mirror.

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