CANTON — A Mexico woman suffered nonlife-threatening injuries when she veered off Route 108 and traveled a few hundred feet before coming to rest in a brook in the woods about 50 feet down an embankment, police said.
Trooper Jeff DeGroot of the Maine State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division said Ann Tompkins, 60, was “pretty banged up” in the 10:45 a.m. accident.
“She’s very lucky,” DeGroot said.
It took Rumford firefighters about 30 minutes to extricate Tompkins and place her on a backboard and into a Stokes basket, and about another 15 minutes for eight to 10 firefighters to carry her up to a waiting Med-Care Ambulance, emergency officials said at the scene.
Med-Care transported Tompkins to Rumford Hospital. Supervisors there declined to release her condition, citing privacy laws.
DeGroot said the accident was not caused by driver inattention or cellphone usage. He said Tompkins, who was heading east toward Canton, got off the lip of the paved shoulder, couldn’t get the car back on the roadway and lost control.
Tire tracks at the scene show the car going up along the side of a grassy hill, then dropping back into a drainage ditch and “threading the needle” among a guy wire, utility pole and guardrail.
The Camry then traveled down an embankment and passed three trees before entering the brook and coming to rest with the passenger side on a hill and the driver’s side pinned against trees lining the brook.
“Fortunately, someone witnessed it, or nobody would have known she went off the road,” Oxford County Deputy Sheriff Michael Dailey said.
DeGroot agreed. He said a passer-by contacted state police in Gray and notified them of the accident. DeGroot, who was en route to a trucking traffic enforcement detail in Rumford on Route 2, handled the accident.
Firefighters from Canton, Peru and Dixfield were called to help, along with Rumford firefighters and their hydraulic equipment.
Rumford fire Deputy Chief Richard Coulombe said they couldn’t get the Camry’s door to open because it was wedged against the roof, so they cut the roof and windshield off.
They also strung a rope between the utility pole and trees in the woods on the path the Camry traveled to assist the firefighters carrying Tompkins back to the road.
One of two M/T Pockets Towing and Repair trucks lifted the Toyota onto Route 108 and the second truck hauled it away. Traffic was limited to one lane at that time.
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- A Canton firefighter, left, and Bob Riley, the owner of M/T Pockets Towing and Repair of Dixfield, wait for a second M/T Pockets tow truck to arrive Wednesday in Canton to retrieve the 2004 Toyota Camry, at bottom right, from a brook about 50 feet below Route 108.
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- M/T Pockets Towing and Repair crewman Matt Roy lifts a demolished 2004 Toyota Camry back to Route 108 from the bottom of a nearly 50-foot embankment Wednesday.
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- Bob Riley, owner of M/T Pockets Towing and Repair of Dixfield, uses a chain saw to clear a path through woods about 50 feet down an embankment from Route 108 on Wednesday in Canton so his crewman, Matt Roy, can pull a 2004 Toyota Camry back to the road with a tow truck.
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- According to tire tracks at the scene, the driver of this crumpled 2004 Toyota Camry at left traveled a few hundred feet off Route 108 late Wednesday morning and barely missed colliding with a utility pole before passing between the trees at center and far right. The car came to rest partially in a brook and partially on a hill, pinning the driver inside the car.
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