By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

TURNER – An elderly Sumner man died and his wife was seriously injured in a two-vehicle crash on Route 4 Sunday evening.

Arthur Kangas, 70, was dead at the scene of the accident, virtually in front of the Chick-A-Dee Restaurant. Trooper Nathan Jamo said Kangas was a passenger in a Jeep Liberty driven by Louise Kangas, 68.

She was taken to Central Maine Medical Hospital in Lewiston with potentially life-threatening injuries, Jamo said. A nursing supervisor at the hospital said Sunday that she didn’t have any information on the woman’s condition.

Jamo said the Kangases were heading north on Route 4 when Louise Kangas attempted to make a left turn across two lanes of Route 4 traffic into the restaurant parking area.

A Toyota Tundra pickup driven by Robert Carrigg, 45, of Massachusetts, wasn’t able to avoid the turning SUV and slammed into the passenger-side door, Jamo said.

The truck ended up rolling onto its driver’s side in the middle of the highway.

Carrigg was treated at the scene for lacerations of the face and monitored by medics for high blood pressure, but not hospitalized.

Jamo said Sunday’s accident was the second fatal crash he’s investigated recently that resulted from an elderly female driver failing to yield the right of way to oncoming traffic.

It’s also the second fatality this year that he’s investigated on the stretch of highway that’s becoming known as a death row.

“It’s probably the fifth, sixth or seventh fatality” on Route 4 in Turner “this year alone,” Jamo added.

High speeds, coupled with frequently turning traffic, contribute to the growing highway’s reputation as a killer.

“It’s a never-ending battle,” Jamo said, to get traffic to slow down on the road as it makes its way through Turner.

State Police have been running frequent radar patrols on the highway, and the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department augments the effort.

Still, Jamo said that the four-lanes of road contribute to the highway carnage in the area.

“Until they make a left-turn only lane there,” he said, accidents will continue. “It’s the four lanes. You don’t see that number of accidents on Route 202 in Greene,” he said of another road with heavy traffic.

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