AUBURN – Alan Delmastro was a man just getting a taste of the good life. He had survived two years of war in Iraq. His new wife was pregnant and Delmastro had returned to a job he loved. The couple were settling in and looking forward to starting a family.
The 30-year-old Lewiston man died Thursday morning as the result of injuries suffered in an accident on Riverside Drive in Auburn the day before. His wife, 31-year-old Trudi Delmastro, remained in critical condition Thursday night at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Friends of the couple said she was two months pregnant at the time of the crash.
“In one of the last conversations we had, he talked about how happy he was,” said Rick Gilbert, one of Delmastro’s best friends and a fellow security officer at Bates College. “This is a tragedy that’s hard to understand.”
Police said Alan Delmastro was a passenger in a Volkswagen Jetta driven by his wife as the pair headed toward Freeport on Riverside Drive at about 2:45 p.m. Wednesday.
The car spun out of control in snow and slush near C’s Country Store, investigators said. It slid into the path of a Ford Taurus driven by 44-year-old Linda Dennis of South Paris, who was driving in the opposite direction, according to police.
Dennis escaped the crash with minor injuries. Auburn police Officer Stephen Burns said the Jetta was struck in the area where Alan Delmastro was sitting.
“The passenger got the brunt of the collision,” he said.
The couple were on their way to Freeport to pick up Trudi Delmastro’s 6-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, when they crashed, friends said.
Alan Delmastro, who suffered head trauma and internal injuries in the wreck, was pronounced dead about 7:20 a.m. Thursday at CMMC. News about his death spread across the Bates College community shortly after.
“It’s hard to know where to begin,” Gilbert said. “He was a good father, a good husband, a good friend to everyone. He was like a silent leader to all the people here who worked with him.”
Delmastro had returned to the area just three months ago after serving two years in Fallujah, Iraq, friends and Bates officials said. He married Trudi in November, got his old job back in January and discovered his wife was pregnant around the same time. Friends said Alan considered 6-year-old Elisabeth his own daughter. The family recently moved into a home on College Street in Lewiston.
“He had his life in order,” Gilbert said.
According to Bates College spokesman Brian McNulty, Delmastro had worked as a security officer at the school years ago. In November 2002, he was called to active duty in Iraq as a member of the Army Reserve in the 94th Military Police Company based in Londonderry, N.H.
In Iraq, Delmastro spent most of his time in Fallujah, as a security escort to VIPs in a quick-reaction force and as a liaison to the mayor’s office.
Delmastro’s tour came to an end in the autumn of 2004. He returned to Maine and attended a basic reserve officer’s course at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro.
Earlier this month, Delmastro went back to work in the Bates College Security Office.
“When he came back, even the people who had never met him before developed a high level of respect for him because of everything he had been through,” Gilbert said. “He was always there to help. He touched a lot of people.”
The condition of the couple’s unborn child was unknown Thursday night. Gilbert said he was told late Thursday night that physicians had detected a heartbeat as they examined a mother and child.
“I’m hearing the baby is doing well so far,” Gilbert said. “Everyone is keeping their fingers crossed.”
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