Staff and wire reports

WEST GARDINER – A Lewiston man was killed and his wife critically injured Friday when a car slid off the roadway and into Horeshoe Pond.

Police said 80-year-old Leonard LePage died at an Augusta hospital after he was pulled from the frigid pond after eight minutes submerged in the water.

His wife survived the ordeal, police said, because of a group of passers-by who stopped and attempted to rescue the couple from the wreck.

Dorothy LePage, 75, was in critical condition Saturday night at Maine General Medical Center in Augusta, a spokeswoman said.

The crash occurred along Route 126 Friday afternoon as a slow-moving snowstorm caused slick roads and treacherous driving. Police said the LePage’s car landed upside down in the pond.

Cory Poulin and Randy Ricker, both of Augusta, were driving along Route 126 when they spotted the car upside down in the water.

“We were screaming, trying to find out if anybody was in there,” Poulin said. “The woman yelled back, There are two people in here!”‘

They broke out a window but were unable to retrieve the occupants until they enlisted a tractor-trailer’s chain to tug the car upright.

Others who stopped at the crash site included a nurse who started CPR on both victims, police said. Dorothy LePage began breathing but her husband did not, according to Kennebec County Sheriff Everett Flannery.

“The Good Samaritan definitely comes into play,” Flannery said. “They saw it and took action immediately and saved someone’s life.”

Lewiston police learned about the crash later Friday and assisted Kennebec County Sheriff’s officials in locating the LePage’s family members.

Leonard and Dorothy LePage were married in 1953 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Lewiston. He had retired from Camden Yarns and she from Bates Mill, according to information announced at a 1998 anniversary celebration in Sabattus.

The couple has three daughters, as well as several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.