CHARLESTON — Slippery roads were a factor in a fatal accident early Monday that took the life of a local woman, whose car crashed into a logging truck heading in the opposite direction, police said.

Samantha Snyder, 20, of Charleston died at the scene just before 7 a.m. on Route 11 when the 2001 blue Toyota Corolla she was driving crossed the centerline and skidded sideways into the path of the fully loaded logging truck.

“It appears she may have lost control,” Lt. Wesley Hussey, commanding officer of the Maine State Police Troop E, headquartered in Orono, said from the scene.

Snyder was a 2010 graduate of Foxcroft Academy who played four years of varsity softball at the Dover-Foxcroft institution.

Tim Smith, athletic administrator at the school, said Monday was a tough day for students and teachers alike.

“She was a popular kid, well-known,” Smith said in a telephone interview late Monday afternoon. “It’s been tough.”

The car was impacted on its passenger side, and the force of the collision crushed that side of the small passenger vehicle. It was sitting in the middle of the snow-covered road when police arrived.

“The victim was killed instantly,” Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said in a statement.

The loaded logging truck overturned onto its side into a ditch, spilling logs, and another logging truck was called in to remove the logs.

The truck was operated by Wyatt Astbury, 32, of Orland, who was taken to Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft as a precautionary measure.

“He appeared to be fine,” Hussey said.

The lieutenant described the fatal accident as “tragic.”

Copy the Story Link