TOPSHAM — A 90-year-old woman was killed and several people hospitalized after a three-vehicle crash Wednesday afternoon on Route 196 near the Lisbon town line.

The crash occurred at 3:41 p.m. near West Merrill Road, along a 2-mile section of Route 196 that has seen three other fatal crashes in less than three years.

Jean E. Brusila of Warren was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a news release from the Topsham Police Department.

Justin R. Cyr, 32, of Lewiston was headed west on Route 196 in a 2002 GMC Envoy when he crossed the centerline and sideswiped an eastbound flatbed tractor-trailer owned by Ray Labbe and Sons of Brunswick and driven by 55-year-old Dana L. Moore of Freeport, police said.

Cyr’s Envoy continued into the eastbound lane and struck a 2007 Honda Civic, operated by Barbara Brusila, 61, of Warren, head-on. Jean Brusila was a passenger in the Civic.

Barbara Brusila was taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening, according to the release.

Cyr was taken to Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening.

Topsham police, with the assistance of the Maine State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit, are investigating the crash. Bath and Brunswick police are reconstructing it.

The road was closed while the crash was cleared and reconstructed, and it reopened just before 9 p.m.

On Dec. 16, 2013, a Topsham man was killed in a head-on collision on Route 196 near Dewey Drive, about 100 yards from the site of a fatal crash just seven days earlier.

In February 2015, another man died when his car crossed into the oncoming lane near the Lisbon town line, police said at the time.

Copy the Story Link