Articles Posted in Auto Accidents

Christopher Breingan of Norridgewock was seriously injured Wednesday in an early morning collision with a tractor-trailer, the Morning Sentinel reported on September 10th. Mr. Breingan, 25, suffered head and hip injuries after being pinned inside his 1987 Chevrolet pickup truck.

The accident happened at around 3:30 a.m. at the intersection of Main Street, Perkins Street and Bridge Street, on U. . Route 2. A Kenworth tractor-trailer owned by Tremblay & Levesque Inc., driven by William Spencer, 67, of Howland, slammed into Mr. Breingan’s pickup truck on the driver’s side as the truck was proceeding through the intersection toward Perkins Street. Breingan was trapped inside the truck, and was rescued by members of the Norridgewock Fire Department using hydraulic cutting tools.

The pickup truck was totaled and tractor-trailer had approximately $10,000 in damage, according to police. Breingan was taken by helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. There is still no word on his condition.

Andrew St. Laurent was driving with Randall Black when Black’s truck plunged off a one-lane bridge in Monmouth and into an Annabessacook Lake tributary, the Kennebec Journal reported on September 2nd.

The crash occurred around 3:30 p.m. when Black’s Pat Jackson Inc. septic truck hit a flatbed truck being driven by 74 year-old Perry Malcolm. Black says he was unable to stop, and drove his truck to the right, through the guard rail and off the bridge to avoid a head-on collision. St. Laurent, whose son will marry Black’s daughter in a few weeks, reached across the top of the cab to hold Black’s head above water until rescuers could free both men.

St. Laurent was checked at the scene, but Black was rushed by ambulance to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. He suffered no broken bones, but his kidneys may have been damaged when he was crushed between the truck and guard rail. He is scheduled for medical tests to see how badly he was hurt.

One person is dead in Franklin County after a serious accident involving a tractor-trailer, a sedan and a pickup truck.

It happened on U. . Route 2 Thursday afternoon. Route 2 is shut down from the Route 17 intersection in Dixfield to Morrison Hill Road in Carthage.

Investigators say a person in the sedan was dead at the scene. Four people in the pickup truck were taken to the hospital with serious injuries. The driver of the tractor-trailer was not injured.

Two people were transported to the hospital Wednesday morning after a four-car crash on Route 302.

According to news reports, the driver of a Subaru Legacy was in the eastbound lane, preparing to turn left across traffic to visit a local business when the car was hit from behind by a Chrysler PT Cruiser at 7 a.m., according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

The collision drove the Subaru into oncoming traffic, where it collided with a Dodge pickup that was then hit by a Nissan Pathfinder that was also westbound.

The parents of a man who suffered extensive injuries in a car crash are suing the bars that served him alcohol, the Kennebec Journal reported on August 22nd. On the night of January 31, 2008, Paul D. Hinerman went drinking with a friend at Mainely Brews & Tavern, the Midnight Blues Club and Cellar Door, and The Chez. According to reports, Waterville police Officer Matthew McNutt saw the pickup shortly after midnight as Hinerman raced past the station on Front Street. Moments later, the vehicle crashed at Front Street and College Avenue, rolled over and trapped Hinerman underneath.

As a result of his injuries, Hinerman, 30, who had been a high school varsity athlete, was forced to spend months in hospitals and rehabilitation centers. According to the lawsuit, he now “has the mental capacity of a child with nearly complete short-term memory loss, speech impairment and loss of mobility and function.”sHe was discharged from the hospital in May 2008 with medical bills in excess of $400,000, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit charges the bars with recklessness in serving Hinerman, “given his visible and observable intoxication and in conscious disregard of the obvious and substantial risk that serving liquor would cause physical harm.”sNot surprisingly, the bars have responded that in fact their serving practices are responsible and it is unfair for them to be held liable for a customer’s own recklessness.

On Thursday, August 27, 2009, a serious multi-vehicle crash on Route 1. The crash happened at about 7 p.m. Thursday near the intersection of Route 1 and Pine Point Road.

Police said two people were transported to the hospital with unknown injuries.

Cases such as this one are complicated and require a thorough investigation into the physical evidence at the scene (e.g., skid marks and road debris), the damage to the vehicles, and the observations of witnesses. Above all, it will be critical to obtain witness statements while memories of the events are still fresh. As Portland and Bangor attorneys with a statewide personal injury law practice and a reputation for aggressive prosecution of injury claims, we have investigated thousands of multicar accidents using expert accident reconstructionists to determine which driver or drivers caused the accident.

Michael Lewis of Bass Harbor was killed in the crash that occurred near the Rumill Road intersection. Lewis was driving a pickup truck that crashed head-on with another pick-up truck. The other truck was operated by Dacota Dow, 19, of Bar Harbor. Authorities reported that the two vehicles collided in the center of the road.

Two passengers in Lewis’ vehicle, Erin Hanley, a teenager from Tremont, and her brother Patrick, 10, were taken by ambulance to MDI Hospital in Bar Harbor with injuries that were not life-threatening.

Troopers from the Maine State Police remained on the scene into the evening investigating the accident.

A driver accused of fatally hitting a pedestrian had an extensive list of past traffic infractions, the Lewiston Sun-Journal reported Aug. 7. Brandon Earl Pelletier, 19, of Turner, is accused of hitting Sharon B. Call, 65, of Turner as she walked to a relative’s mailbox. According to an accident report by the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department, Call was walking to the mailbox at 9:45 a.m. when Pelletier approached at an unsafe rate of speed. He is accused of hitting Call, then skidding down an embankment and into a field.

Research by the Sun-Journal shows that Pelletier has been in trouble for traffic offenses many times in his short driving career. Since he received his license in December of 2006, it has been suspended seven times — it was restored most recently in April. His record also includes three convictions for speeding; two for running a stop sign; and one for illegal transport of liquor. He has also been convicted twice for operating with a suspended license and once for failing to produce evidence of insurance, along with more minor offenses. No charges are currently pending in connection with the current accident, but the accident report said unsafe speed was a primary contributor to the accident, along with tire failure as a secondary contributor.

Of course, a spotted past doesn’t guarantee that a driver will be involved in a serious accident later. But as a Bangor, Maine car crash lawyer, I know that such drivers are statistically correlated with fatal accidents. According to statistics from the federal Department of Transportation, 40% of those involved in fatal accidents with speeding in 2007 were also legally drunk (with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08% or higher). In the same year, about 40% of drivers involved in fatal crashes had previous license suspensions, crashes or convictions for OUI/DUI, speeding or another serious moving violation. When a driver has multiple previous offenses, it’s not hard to guess that he or she might be an unsafe driver. These offenses could be powerful evidence for the driver’s liability in any Maine car wreck lawsuit that victims and their loved ones choose to file.

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Jack Vincent, a 12-year-old Scarborough boy who was hit by a pickup truck last week is reportedly improving, although it is still unknown what permanent limitations he will have from his injuries.

York County Sheriff Maurice Ouellette acknowledged that the bridge is too narrow to accommodate cars and pedestrians at the same time. The driver is claiming that he didn’t have enough time to react before hitting Vincent.

In our opinion, an investigation into this matter should carefully consider the truck driver’s speed and knowledge of the children’s use of the bridge, and should analyze whether law enforcement officials should have done more to prevent this accident from occurring. In our opinion, there should also be additional investigation whether the State failed to do enough to accommodate the use of the bridge by pedestrians and children.

The Kennebec Couty Sheriff’s Department reported that the results of the blood test conducted on Joseph Rouleau, 35, of Fayette, following the crash that claimed the life of 21-year-old Corrie Lazar showed Rouleau had a blood-alcohol content of 0.23, almost three times the legal limit. Charges will likely be filed against Mr. Rouleau.

In this type of situation, it is highly likely that it will be established that Mr. Rouleau’s level of intoxication prevented him from seeing Lazar in the road or, if he did see her, impaired his reaction time to the point where he was not able to avoid an otherwise avoidable collision with the pedestrian.

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