KENDUSKEAG – A 12-year-old Kenduskeag boy remained in critical condition Wednesday after he and five of his friends were struck by a car as they hung out on the edge of busy Route 15 near the Country Mobile Home Park on Tuesday night.

Scott Connolly underwent brain surgery at 2 a.m. Wednesday, according to his sister, K.D. Connolly, who also was injured in the crash. Lindsey Grover, 12, was listed in fair condition at St. Joseph Hospital. Those who witnessed the accident said Grover broke her shoulder and leg.

The other four youths, 13-year-old Isaiah Stokes, 18-year-old Melvin Stokes, 14-year-old Andy Will and 14-year-old K.D. Connolly all were treated at Bangor hospitals and released by Wednesday morning.

A heap of twisted metal mailboxes at the entrance to the park marked the accident scene Wednesday afternoon.

The accident occurred at 10 p.m. as the kids, all but one of whom live in the park, were hanging out near the mailboxes, many standing in the paved breakdown lane along Route 15, Penobscot County Sheriff Deputy Sgt. Troy Morton said. Rob Garner II, 19, of Corinth was headed toward Bangor when he turned left into the park to drop someone off.

Morton said it appeared Garner was distracted when he saw kids he knew and pulled directly into the path of a vehicle driven by 50-year-old Gary Gates of Kenduskeag. Gates swerved into the breakdown lane to try to avoid the accident and plowed into the kids and the mailboxes.

Morton said the area was not well-lighted and that Gates never saw the kids. Morton said the accident was caused by driver inattention on the part of Garner, who may be ticketed for failing to yield the right of away.

Neither Garner nor Gates were injured.

On Wednesday afternoon the narrow streets of the Country Mobile Home Park were eerily quiet, absent most of the adolescents and teens who spend their summer days roaming the park, drifting from home to home, trying to find something to do.

Lisa Berberian, whose mobile home is just a few feet from the crumpled mass of mailboxes, was awakened by the crash and the screams of her 16-year-old son, Ricky Bryant, telling her to call E-911. On Wednesday she was reminding her son how lucky he was.

Bryant, who had been hanging out with the kids, saw the car coming in time to dart out of the way. He was the only one who escaped injury.

“I’ll tell ya, it was scary, man. All of my friends went flying right by me,” said the teen.

Scott Connolly and Grover were the first ones hit, Bryant said, taking the full impact of the car. The car then struck the mailboxes and then four more kids. The mailboxes may have slowed the momentum of the car, thereby saving the other four kids from more serious injuries, Bryant theorized.

Isaiah Stokes, his knee protected by a big white brace, twisted away from the car, but his leg was clipped by the tire, he said. On Wednesday he limped around the mailboxes describing the chaos of the previous night.

“I was further back and I turned to run and the tire clipped me,” he said. “Then there was just screaming and pretty soon everyone was just all over the place. … That guy [Gates] didn’t even know us kids were there. He swerved around that other car and took us all out.”

Berberian said the accident injured almost every adolescent and teen-ager in the park.

“They all hang out together,” she said. “So I think there were just two who weren’t there with them.”

She said parents always are telling the kids that the road is dangerous, but she said living in a trailer park in such a rural area made for a lot of bored kids.

“I wish there was something for them to do. They end up just hanging around with nothing to do,” she said.