MEXICO – An elderly Rumford woman was lucky to be alive Monday after the car she was driving crashed into a ravine beside Route 2 in Mexico, police said.
It was the second such wreck there in less than a month.
Dorothy Fraser, 80, of 514 Penobscot St. was carried out of a 40-foot-deep gully by Mexico and Rumford firefighters and Med-Care Ambulance medics after rescuers cut the top off her 1998 Chevy Lumina.
She was taken to Rumford Hospital. According to a nursing supervisor, she was later admitted as a patient and was in stable condition as of Monday night.
“She’s a very lucky lady,” said investigating Patrolman Jeff Stoddard.
“If it wasn’t for the airbag and seat belt, she probably would be dead. They had to cut the seat belt from her,” he added.
Stoddard said Fraser suffered safety belt-type injuries: possible broken arm, ribs and collarbone.
The crash occurred shortly before 12:48 p.m. just beyond the Big Apple convenience store and gas station.
Stoddard said Fraser was driving west when her car left the road on a slight curve, traveled across a lawn, then flew through the air for about 60 to 70 feet over the ravine.
The car slammed nose first into the bank then dropped into the ravine, tail-end first, landing at a steep angle on all four wheels.
“The first person on the scene said (Fraser) told him that she fell asleep. She never tapped the brake, but she was probably doing the speed limit. Speed was not a factor,” Stoddard said.
The speed limit is 40 mph.
Immediately after the accident, a Paris dispatcher told Mexico firefighters that the car had crashed into the river near the Big Apple, and was partially submerged.
A responding Mexico firefighter, unable to see the car in the ravine, passed it, looking along the Androscoggin River, which is about half a mile behind the convenience store.
Mexico fire Chief Gary Wentzell said the dispatcher’s first call caused him to ask Rumford firefighters to respond with water rescue gear.
A second call said the car was partially submerged in a brook, with the driver trapped in the car, but the brook in the ravine was mostly dried up.
After the initial confusion, firefighters from Mexico and Rumford swarmed around the totaled car, while Med-Care medics worked inside during the dramatic rescue.
Ladders were lowered into the ravine, Wentzell said, “because the hole is deep, and I didn’t want guys falling in the hole.”
Using hydraulic tools, Rumford firefighters cut the roof posts so the top could be lifted off, providing access to the woman.
One end of a rescue rope was tied to a Mexico firetruck and the other end taken into the ravine. Fraser was eased out of the driver’s seat, placed on a backboard, then into a Stoke’s litter, which was attached to the rope.
Emergency responders then carried the litter out in front of a gathered crowd.
The accident was the second in less than a month at the same spot. A mangled guardrail from a an Aug. 29 crash had yet to be replaced. A 2005 Isuzu box truck hauling cardboard from Mid Maine Holdings LLC of Lewiston, had crashed through the guardrail, hit the opposite bank and rolled over into the ravine. The driver suffered a possible broken leg.
Stoddard said he would contact the Maine Department of Transportation and ask it to install a longer guardrail to try to prevent similar crashes.
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