DIXFIELD — A Carthage man was seriously injured Tuesday afternoon when he lost control of a pickup truck on Route 2 and slid sideways into an oncoming commercial truck, police said.
Nathan Conley, 23, suffered head and leg injuries in the 3:15 p.m. accident and was taken by Med-Care Ambulance to Rumford Hospital, Dixfield police officer Anne Simmons-Edmunds said.
A nursing supervisor at the hospital said Conley was transferred by Med-Care to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.
Two other men involved in the accident, Alan Linkletter, 39, of Athens, and his passenger, Calvin Cates, 51, of Moscow, suffered minor injuries and declined to go to the hospital. They were in a 1-ton Ford F-350 commercial truck owned by Linkletter and Sons Inc. of Athens.
Loggers Linkletter and Cates said they were returning to Athens with fellow crewmen in other company trucks during a snowstorm when the accident occurred. It was about a half-mile west of Common Road and right before a series of S-turns, which Conley was coming out of.
“He was sideways just as we were coming to him,” said Linkletter, who tried to avoid the collision by steering into the eastbound emergency lane. “We had enough time to say, ‘Oh, (expletive),’ and then we hit hard.”
The impact crushed the passenger side of the black pickup and mangled the front-end of the commercial truck.
“I’m glad he didn’t have a passenger, because they would have been killed,” Linkletter said.
Simmons-Edmunds said Conley was headed to work at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry.
Dixfield firefighters limited traffic to one lane for about an hour and removed debris from the road.
Simmons-Edmunds said road conditions were “sloppy, wet and slippery.”
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- A Linkletter and Sons Inc. of Athens logger examines damage to a Ford pickup that police said slid sideways into one of the company’s trucks at about 3:15 p.m. on Route 2 in Dixfield, about a half-mile west of Common Road. The driver of the truck, Nathan Conley, 23, of Carthage was taken to a Lewiston hospital.
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- Eastbound traffic on Route 2 in Dixfield waits Tuesday afternoon while a tow truck from M/T Pockets of Dixfield positions itself to retrieve a totaled Ford pickup truck that police say slid sideways into the path of a westbound 2001 Ford F350 commercial truck. The pickup truck driver, Nathan Conley, 23, of Carthage, was taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Two men in the commercial truck suffered minor injuries, police said.
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- Logger Alan Linkletter, 39, of Athens, left center, waits beside the 2001 Ford F-350 Linkletter and Sons Inc. truck he was driving east on Route 2 in Dixfield when the Ford pickup at right slid sideways into the truck. Linkletter and a passenger suffered minor injuries. The driver of the pickup, Nathan Conley, 23, of Carthage was taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, police said.
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- Dixfield police Officer Anne Simmons-Edmunds said Nathan Conley, 23, of Carthage, the driver of this Ford pickup truck, was seriously injured after he lost control of it on Route 2 during a snowstorm Tuesday afternoon. It slid into the path of a commercial Ford F350 truck owned by Linkletter and Sons Inc. of Athens.
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