LEWISTON – A series of crashes involving 10 vehicles Thursday afternoon resulted in minor injuries but major traffic snarls around the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge.
Police said four consecutive crashes, three on the Lewiston side of the bridge, one in Auburn, caused traffic problems in both cities beginning at about 4:30 p.m.
The first crash occurred near Russell and College streets, just off the Lewiston end of the bridge, as one vehicle struck the back of another, police said.
That crash was manageable for police. But moments later, as traffic backed up along the bridge, four cars collided as they headed from Auburn and into Lewiston.
“Cars were starting to stop, and people weren’t paying attention,” said Lewiston police Sgt. David St. Pierre. “They were all rear-end types of accidents.”
At about 4:35 p.m., vehicles driven by Susan Nason, 41, of Winthrop; Jaclyn Peterson, 19, of Litchfield; Michael Ferrara, 18, of Phippsburg; and Jason McIntosh, 20, of Bath, collided near the Lewiston end of the bridge.
That crash, the second of the four, caused traffic to back up further.
Moments after that pile-up, two vehicles heading in the opposite direction collided while both were heading toward Auburn. And then another pair of cars slammed into each other on the bridge as the drivers headed into Lewiston.
All the collisions remained under investigation Thursday night. Driver information from the two-vehicle accidents was not available.
Police speculated that at least some of the collisions occurred as drivers were looking away from the roadway to see what had happened on the other side of the bridge.
Two people were hurt in the four-car collision but none of the injuries were serious, police said. Mostly the chain-reaction wrecks caused headaches for motorists and a lot of paperwork for police and medical crews.
“It all happened during a heavy rush hour so it caused severe delays,” St. Pierre said.
Several officers, from both Lewiston and Auburn, were continuing their investigations into the cause of the crashes.
Comments are no longer available on this story