BUCKFIELD – Linda Jonaitis had fallen asleep on her couch after coming home from her third-shift job at L.L. Bean when she heard a crash.

“I thought a bureau in the kids room upstairs had fallen over. I got up and looked around,” Jonaitis said. “Then I saw the back end of a truck outside my bedroom.”

A front corner of the pickup struck the home on Darnit Road – yes, Darnit – gouging a hole in the building.

Authorities said a 16-year-old driver, Lindsay Henderson of Buckfield, lost control of the vehicle before it went off the road and struck the home.

The owner of the house, Pete Thibodeau, was at work at the time. Thibodeau said he was happy Henderson was not injured.

“If she had hit the tree close to her path of skid, she would have been seriously injured,” he said.

Oxford County Sheriff’s Cpl. Justin Brown said Henderson lost control of the 2004 Ford Ranger when she hit a slushy spot on the road. Brown said the road had been sanded and was in relatively good condition, but “she got into a slushy area and from there lost control.”

Brown said speed and driver inexperience were the likely causes of the mishap. Henderson was not treated for any injuries at the scene, Brown said. He estimated damage to the truck at $5,000, and said damage to the building would be more difficult to estimate.

Jonaitis was looking into the gaping hole after the truck had been removed and saw the inside of her bedroom closet. The hole appeared to be the only damage to the house, she said. “I guess they built houses pretty good in 1860,” she said. It is one of the oldest houses on Darnit Road, Jonaitis said.