GILEAD — Two roads on either side of the Androscoggin River were temporarily closed to traffic by firefighters Wednesday following two accidents.

In the first accident at 7:27 a.m. at about 600 North Road in Bethel, Jennifer Brearley, 45, of Gilead, escaped injury when her 2003 Ford Explorer slid sideways on ice and into a clump of trees down a 30-foot embankment, Oxford County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Parshall said.

He said she was driving south when she encountered ice.

“When I got into Bethel, it was glare ice and they were trying to sand it,” Parshall said. “They had rain and snow at 33 degrees. It’s typical early-winter driving — snow with ice on top.”

He also called for a Central Maine Power Co. crew because a tree was knocked onto a power line. The road was closed for about 15 minutes to allow a Gaudreau’s tow truck to retrieve the demolished Explorer.

“She was lucky; the vehicle took the impact,” Parshall said.

A second driver wasn’t so lucky.

At 1:25 p.m., Rosemary Hinton, 79, of Claremont, N.H., suffered a fractured right arm after the 2002 Mercury Sable she was driving east on Route 2 slammed into ledge in a construction zone, Parshall said.

She was taken by Bethel Rescue to Rumford Hospital. Route 2 was also shut down for a while so Gaudreau’s could retrieve and tow the demolished Mercury.

Parshall said Hinton was driving in a 55-mph zone when she rounded a corner where the speed limit was abruptly lowered to 25 mph due to ongoing road construction that was limiting heavy traffic to one lane.

A vehicle ahead of her, which he said she didn’t see, was slowing to a stop on the newly paved highway when Hinton also tried to stop.

“She hit the brakes and went skidding into a granite embankment,” Parshall said.

“She went into a little gully, skidding approximately 60 to 80 feet and struck the side of the ledge,” he said. “She hit the ledge very hard.”

At the time, the wind was blowing so hard that Parshall said he was worried it would blow his cruiser off the highway while he was responding to the accident.

“I had to slow down because a couple of times the wind almost took me for a ride,” he said.

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