FRYEBURG – A trio of teenage girls escaped with their lives when the car they were riding in was totaled after being hit broadside by a tractor-trailer on Route 302 at about noon Thursday.
“It’s just a godsend,” said Diane Merrill, the mother of the car’s driver, Mandy Merrill, 18, of Lovell. “They are all so lucky. All of us are lucky parents,” Diane Merrill said.
The accident remained under investigation late Thursday but it appears the car, traveling northbound on the Denmark Road, may have failed to stop at the road’s intersection with the highway, said Sgt. Michael McAllister of the Fryeburg Police.
The truck, eastbound on 302, and hauling an empty wood chip trailer left the highway and came to rest in a nearby barn, according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.
Merrill, along with passengers Laura Adams, 17, of Fryeburg and Mary Toomey, 15, of Denmark, were all treated at hospitals in Bridgton and Lewiston and released.
Adams and Toomey were treated and released from Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, a nursing supervisor there said. Merrill was taken to Bridgton Hospital, McAllister said. A nursing supervisor at the hospital confirmed one of the teens from the accident was treated at that hospital and released, but could not confirm it was Merrill or that it was the cars driver.
Also escaping serious injury was the truck’s driver, 40-year-old Randy Wales of Fryeburg.
McAllister said Wales received minor injuries but refused treatment at the accident scene. Toomey was taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Lewiston, Diane Merrill said.
Toomey, riding in the backseat of the Chevy Cavalier suffered the worst of the injuries, including a broken rib and a punctured lung, Diane Merrill said. “Mary is just so lucky. You see the car, and it’s amazing she made it,” Diane Merrill said.
Mandy Merrill suffered cuts and abrasions, as well as a concussion, while Adams broke her collarbone, Merrill’s mother said.
The accident closed about a two-mile stretch of Route 302 from the Stanley Hill Road to the Wilton Warren Road for more than nine hours while police investigated the scene and crews cleared the roadway, McAllister said late Thursday.
Fryeburg Police Chief Wayne Brooking also expressed relief and amazement late Thursday night when called at home for comment. Brooking said the scene of the crash looked far worse than the final outcome.
“When they left the scene, they were all critical,'” Brooking said “The tractor-trailer actually ran up and over parts of the car, but everyone’s coming home.”
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