RUMFORD – Police are seeking help from the public to find a vehicle with extensive front-end damage that rammed the rear of a young Rumford girl’s car Friday night on Route 108, sending her flying 100 feet off the road into a ledge.

Crystal Austin, 17, of the Smith Crossing neighborhood, suffered facial and leg cuts from shattered glass, and complained of nose and hip pain, Rumford Patrolman Scott Mills said at the scene.

“She said she’s hurt all over. She lost consciousness for a brief minute,” he added.

Austin was driving a red 1998 Kia Sephia south on Route 108, and had just rounded a corner near the NewPage paper mill road when the accident happened in a 45 mph zone.

“She said someone came up behind her at a high rate of speed, rear-ended her, and it shot her car off the road into the woods,” Mills said.

Evidence at the scene indicated the car flew over an embankment, crashed nose- first into a small mud bog, creating a huge divot, then bounced up and out, traveled uphill through brush, and slammed head-on into a large rock ledge. The totaled car was wedged against three guy wires attached to a utility pole.

The violent impact in the bog, showered the ledge face several feet away with mud, which also covered most of the car.

The vehicle that shoved her car off the road never stopped, Mills said.

“If anyone was in the area at 7 p.m., please call us. This doesn’t appear to be intentional. Someone probably just came around that corner too fast and probably never saw her,” he said.

Someone came by after the wreck, got Austin and took her to her nearby house, where she called police to report the accident. A Med-Care Ambulance crew drove there, picked her up, and took her to Rumford hospital, followed by assisting Rumford Sgt. James Bernard. Police had yet to learn the girl’s condition by 8:30 p.m.

Rumford firefighters directed traffic for about an hour, before Roland Patenaude of Roland’s Automotive and Towing of Mexico freed the car from the wires and towed it away.

To contact Rumford police, phone 364-4551.