Truck flips over, spills liquid asphalt in ditch

TOWNSHIP 30 – Liquid asphalt leaked from a tractor-trailer truck after the driver fell asleep at the wheel and his truck flipped over on Route 9 late Monday.

Maine State Police Trooper Jeff Ingemi said the driver, Paul Hicks, 33, of Nova Scotia, wasn’t injured in the accident, but officers were on the scene for almost 10 hours.

Ingemi said liquid asphalt is 300 degrees. The company that Hicks was driving for had to send special equipment to the scene to pump out the truck before it could be righted.

Ingemi said that Hicks was carrying the asphalt for Midland Transport Ltd. of Saint John, New Brunswick, when he apparently fell asleep at the wheel near the Wilderness Lodge.

Around midnight, the truck left the road, went into a ditch and overturned, spilling some of the asphalt into the ditch, the trooper said.

A Midland Transport truck equipped with special heat-resistant hoses arrived at approximately 4:30 a.m. Tuesday and pumped the asphalt from the truck. The asphalt in the ditch had hardened and was rolled up. The entire operation took until almost 10 a.m. Tuesday, Ingemi said.

Trooper Joshua Haines, who was on his way to the scene to relieve Ingemi, was struck by a tractor-trailer truck that turned into his cruiser, but was not injured.