PERU – Sun Journal paper carrier Stacy Steward had a bit of unexpected but scary help getting to a customer’s roadside delivery tube early Thursday morning on Route 108 just north of Peru Center Road.

While traveling north at about 3:20 a.m., the 32-year-old Rumford woman said she put the left-turn signal on in her white 1992 Mercury Sable and slowed to cross the opposite lane to deliver Jon O’Halloran’s paper at 543 Auburn Road (Route 108). It’s something she’s done daily since Christmas when she took over the route with more than 200 customers.

The next thing she knew, she and the car flew past the yellow tube and came to rest in the muddy driveway after the driver of an empty northbound logging truck braked for several feet across two lanes, then clipped the Sable’s left-rear end.

Steward said she didn’t see anyone behind her until just before impact.

The rig came to rest off the opposite lane shoulder in a snowbank adjacent to the delivery tube, Steward and investigating Maine State Trooper Corey Smith said Thursday.

The truck driver backed out of the snow and continued on, leaving a hysterical Steward behind in the dark with a back injury.

“He sat there for a couple of minutes, and then he backed the truck up and I thought he was going to come over and help me, but he kept going down 108 like nothing happened,” Steward said, moving her 4-foot-10-inch body stiffly.

With her mom, Pamela Pace, from whom Steward borrowed $75 to pay Auto-Tech of Rumford’s towing charge, the two women examined the damaged Sable in the garage parking lot early Thursday afternoon.

“I only have limited liability insurance on it, so it’s an out-of-pocket expense for me, because I don’t know who the other guy was. It will have to stay there until I get my paycheck,” said Steward, who also works as a gymnastics coach at the Greater Rumford Community Center.

With a helper and another car, she’ll be back delivering this morning.

The accident crushed the wheel well onto her driver-side rear tire, preventing the car from being driven, and damaged the rear door. The truck also blew out her left rear brake light and deeply gouged the side of the Sable down to the metal.

All of which was not good for the Sable, but could be a stroke of luck for Smith.

“The interesting thing is, that the right front end of the truck should have white paint on it,” the trooper said late Thursday afternoon. “The truck will also be missing a vertical 2-foot-long bumper guide. It’s a post that helps the driver see where the edge of his bumper is. He’ll have one on the left side with a tiny blue light at the top, but I’ve got the right one. He left it behind.”

Due to slight – rather than crushing – damage to the Sable, Smith said, it appeared that the truck driver had managed to slow the rig enough before impact and almost missed hitting the car.

Seeking help, Smith said anyone with information about a damaged single-frame logging truck rather than a tractor-trailer rig, can contact him through the state police barracks in Gray at 800-228-0857.

Sun Journal circulation manager Denise Chessie said early Thursday afternoon in Rumford that Steward had delivered about 30 to 50 papers when the accident happened.

Chessie spent all morning and part of the afternoon delivering the rest of Steward’s route after retrieving the newspapers from the damaged car while Steward went by private vehicle to Rumford Hospital for treatment.