HANOVER – Two adults and two young children escaped injury early Thursday afternoon after a harrowing encounter with a bull moose on Route 2 that caused an estimated $55,000 in damage to their truck and trailer, police said.
“They are very, very lucky to be alive,” Trooper Daniel Hanson said while examining an overturned 31-foot-long 2006 Gulfstream fifth-wheel trailer that landed on its side, diagonally blocking both lanes.
The trailer ripped free of the 2003 Ford F250 pickup truck that was towing it, sending the truck rolling off the opposite lane and into a drainage ditch, Hanson said.
The 12:30 p.m. accident was “a classic example of seat belts saving lives,” he said
“Windows blown out, glass flying, you’d expect scrapes, but everybody was buckled in. There’s no question about it. If they didn’t have seat belts on, they would have been thrown around, just looking at the damage,” Hanson added.
Driver Robert Shibley, 35, of Madison sat on a bank in shade behind the wreckage, hugging 6-year-old son Max Shibley, while front-seat passenger Carol Ellis, 39, of Oakland sat nearby hugging 8-year-old Noah Shibley.
Robert Shibley and Ellis were following Shibley’s father, headed to Vermont and a family wedding, when they rounded a corner three miles west of Gordie Howe’s Store, and a “very large bull moose” ran out in front of them.
“I had a split second to decide – either hit the moose or swerve. I swerved, the trailer swayed,” Robert Shibley said.
Seeing no oncoming traffic, Shibley hit the brakes and yanked the wheel toward the opposite lane, missing the moose, then tried in vain to control the trailer’s pull on the pickup.
“I tried to go around, and just that swerve, I righted it, and everything was fine for a split second, then the trailer pulled us over, and we were rolling.
“That was quite a ride, I tell you, but, I’m so thankful that the boys are OK,” he added.
Hanson repeatedly told Shibley he reacted correctly, because striking such a large moose head-on would have catapulted the heavy animal through the windshield with killing force.
“There’s no question in my mind, you did the right thing. Absolutely!” he said.
Hanson credited several passersby and witnesses for stopping to help the family and himself and Bethel police Chief Alan Carr, who was flagged down while patrolling in nearby Bethel.
One-way traffic was limited to the eastbound emergency lane only until 2:10 p.m. when Hanson and Carr shut down Route 2 so Geoff Gaudreau of Gaudreau’s Repair, Towing and Recovery of Bethel, and a crewman righted the trailer.
Traffic was backed up for miles in both directions. Two-way traffic resumed when the cleared road was opened 40 minutes later.
The trailer was on its maiden voyage, Hanson said. He estimated damage to it at between $30,000 and $35,000; another $20,000 to the totaled pickup. The highway was gouged in several places.
The moose was nowhere to be found, but Ellis told Hanson that if it did pop out of the woods while they were there, she’d give it a piece of her mind.
“A lot of people buy campers to get close to nature, but they got a little too close to nature,” Hanson said.
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