Maine Injury Lawyer Blog

Three Belfast Area High School students were injured and taken to the hospital Friday night after their car struck a tree.

The crash occurred at around 8:15 p.m. on Back Searsport Road when the 2002 Daewoo in which the three male students were riding left the road for unknown reasons and hit the tree, Sgt. Walter Corey with the Belfast Police Department said Saturday.

The names of the three victims were not released because they are all under age 18.

Corey said a 16-year-old and one 17-year-old passenger were taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor for treatment, while a third 17-year-old was taken to Waldo County General Hospital. He was later transferred to EMMC.

The 16-year-old suffered severe injuries and was possibly going to be flown to Boston for treatment, Corey said.

A Maine State Police accident reconstruction team was brought in to assist with the investigation.

A two-car crash early Saturday morning in Maine took the life of one Brown graduate student, Tam Ngoc Tran GS, and injured another, President Ruth Simmons announced in a campus-wide e-mail Sunday morning. Tran, 27, one of two passengers in a car driven by Heather Lee GS, was airlifted from the scene to Eastern Maine Medical Center, where she died at 5:55 p.m. Saturday, according to Maine State Police Sergeant Timothy Varney. The other passenger, Cinthya Nathalie Felix Perez, 26, died at the scene.

At 1:20 a.m. Saturday, a Ford pick-up truck driven by Jon Dow, 23, of Hampden, Maine, crossed the center line of Maine's Route 3 and struck the vehicle driven by Lee, 28, according to Varney. Dow and Lee also sustained injuries.

The crash remains under investigation and is being reconstructed by the local sheriff's department.

Three people are recovering from serious injuries after a head-on crash Monday morning in Paris. Police say a car heading north on Route 119 crossed the center line and collided with a pickup truck heading south. Driver Justin Rolfe, 26, of Paris and his passenger, Donavan Stevens, 26, of Hebron were listed in stable condition Monday night after Rolfe's car crossed the center line on Route 119 in Paris on Monday morning and hit a truck, police Lt. Michael Dailey said. Terence Bean, 51, of Paris, was the driver of the truck.

A police investigation is underway. As personal injury specialists, Peter Thompson & Associates has investigated hundreds of accidents. In almost all cases, the primary and secondary causes of collisions are disputed, resulting in the need for a comprehensive accident reconstruction. While police will often conduct an accident reconstruction, we find it frequently necessary to conduct more detailed investigations of accident scenes to determine who was at fault. Because important evidence that will be necessary to provide the most accurate investigation is often lost as time passes, it is critical that a comprehensive accident reconstruction occur as soon as possible and that all witnesses to the accident are interviewed to preserve their recollections.

Police on Tuesday identified the Rochester motorcyclist dealt life threatening injuries in Saturday's accident on Route 11 as Robert Lingard, 46, who remains in serious condition at Maine Medical Center.

Sgt. Jay Drury also identified the 18-year-old New Durham man driving the pickup truck that collided with Lingard's motorcycle as John Chamberlin.

The accident remains under investigation.

A 46-year-old Rochester resident riding a motorcycle on Route 11 was airlifted to Maine Medical Center in Portland with life threatening injuries Saturday after colliding with a pickup truck.

Police Cpl. Mike McNeil said authorities are not releasing the names of those involved, pending notification of next of kin.

He confirmed the age and hometown of the motorcyclist and said the driver of the other vehicle, a white GMC Sierra pickup, is an 18-year-old from New Durham.

McNeil said a preliminary investigation revealed the accident occurred as the motorcycle was headed toward New Durham on Route 11. The motorcycle collided with a truck that tried to turn right from Spring Street onto Route 11, he said.

Speed may have been a factor, he said, and a failure to yield may have been involved as well.

The accident is under investigation.

According to police reports, Wayne Turcotte, 24, who is believed to have been the driver of the 1999 Volkswagen car that crashed on Lyford Road. A passenger in the vehicle, Shane Stone, 24, of Orneville, was taken by ambulance to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. He suffered serious head injuries, Emerson said.

Mr. Stone has a potential claim against Mr. Turcotte's insurance company and may have an additional claim for any underinsured motorist coverage he or a family member has.

This accident is under investigation.