Wrong-way driver killed in fiery I-95 crash

NEWPORT – An unidentified driver of a Dodge Caravan that was traveling southbound in the northbound lane of Interstate 95 was killed when the vehicle collided head-on with a tractor-trailer truck Wednesday afternoon.

“Everything went everywhere when they hit,” Nate Hall, 19, of Farmingdale said. Hall had been traveling home from school at Eastern Maine Community College, formerly Eastern Maine Technical College, and witnessed the collision.

Maine State Police had received several calls about a green van traveling the wrong way on the interstate, State Trooper David Yankowsky said.

Yankowsky was at Exit 44 heading south at about 3 p.m., trying to catch up to the van, when he heard the call that it had struck a tractor-trailer. Officials had not determined why the vehicle was traveling the wrong way.

The truck driver, 67-year-old Elliott Beal of Beals, escaped the burning truck, but suffered an injury to his left arm, Yankowsky said. Beal was taken to Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield where he was treated and released.

“I was surprised to see him,” Hall said, referring to Beal. “It wasn’t pretty.” He watched Beal jump from the burning truck and run across the median to the southbound lane, away from the crash. Beal got into the van of a passerby, who drove him a safe distance from the crash and pulled off the road.

Black smoke engulfed both lanes as the truck, trailer, van and the embankment in the northbound lane were aflame. Streams of liquified aluminum ran from the wheels of the truck which had melted from friction and heat after the tires blew.

Robert Chapman, 21, of Orono was traveling from Farmington to his job in Bangor when he encountered the van moments before the crash.

“I had just passed a guy and was in the left lane heading north when I saw this van coming at me. I figured it must have went through the gulch or used a turnout to be heading in the wrong direction. There were two cars ahead of me and he was coming at them, but they avoided him. I pulled over into the right lane and slowed down.”

Chapman said he got a quick look at the dark minivan with the American flag on its license plate and at the face of the driver as he passed him at an estimated 75 or 80 mph.

“He was an older guy. I’d guess in his 40s. He was Caucasian and balding. He looked straight ahead. His hand was on top of the wheel and he was going fast, driving straight ahead. I laid on my horn to warn him he was going the wrong way, but he never responded,” said Chapman, who said he didn’t see anyone else in the van.

After the van passed him, Chapman’s eyes instinctively went to his rearview mirror.

“He came to a part of the road where someone coming at him would never see him in time. Then I saw a ball of fire and smoke. I pulled over and parked, got on my cell phone and called 911 and told them just where it occurred,” he said.

The vehicles collided in the middle of the bridge that passes over the Guilford Rail tracks between the Newport and Ridge Road exits. The impact of the crash pushed both vehicles about 300 feet, leaving pieces of both strewn across the fire-blackened northbound lanes. The truck was empty.

State Police could not confirm the age or sex of the van driver as of Wednesday afternoon, but believed it was a male. Police were reconstructing the scene and trying to gain as much information from the demolished and charred van as they could. Newport and Corinna firefighters also responded, along with Corinna emergency personnel.

Both Chapman and Hall said they heard explosions as the vehicles collided.

“I started to stop right here,” Hall said, as he watched fire crews and police extinguish the vehicles and scrounge for evidence in the remains. “But I thought my truck was gonna catch on fire.” Hall said he could feel the heat from the burning vehicles from inside his pickup.

“I travel 1,000 miles a week on this road, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Hall said. “I had to think about it for a second. I didn’t think it was real when I went by it.”