Crashes plague crowded I-95 before It festival 2 rollovers delay northbound lanes

HAMPDEN – State police advisories Friday warned of traffic backups as thousands of cars and vans made their way north for the weekend-long Phish festival expected to draw 60,000 people to Limestone.

Two accidents Friday morning in the Bangor area further delayed traffic and closed Interstate 95 for almost an hour.

Three Phish fans from New Jersey were involved in a rollover accident at 7 a.m. Friday on the northbound lane of I-95 in Hampden, police said.

The driver, a juvenile, was ejected and trapped under the wreckage for nearly an hour while rescue crews tried to extricate him. Once free of the wreckage, he was taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Trooper Kyle Willette said.

Someone who witnessed the accident removed the two passengers from the car. They were taken by ambulance to EMMC.

The three occupants of the car were all teenagers from New Jersey, police said. The driver lost control of the vehicle and rolled over on the soft shoulder, Willette said. Driver distraction or inattention are considered the cause of the accident. Alcohol and drug use were not involved, the trooper said.

The group had driven about 12 hours straight through the night from New Jersey, Willette said.

The northbound lane of I-95 was closed for almost an hour to allow the LifeFlight helicopter to land and pick up the young man.

A second accident on I-95 reported later in the morning involved three more out-of-state Phish fans and further delayed traffic for concertgoers, according to police.

The car rolled over on the northbound lane of I-95 in Carmel around 11 a.m. Friday, Trooper Forrest Simpson Jr. said. No one was injured.

The driver, a man from Colorado, said he fell asleep at the wheel after having driven for 13 hours. The car made a stop in Newport shortly before the accident, Simpson said.

Simpson said the car swerved off the road when the driver fell asleep and then it flipped over when he attempted to correct the problem. There were two passengers in the car.

Etna Rescue was called to the scene but was not needed. The car, belonging to the driver’s father, was towed away. Names of those involved were not available.

“The guys were left at Dysart’s. They were trying to make arrangements to still get to the show,” the trooper said.

These are just two more accidents on a list of problems that preceded the festival’s official opening.

Earlier this week, a worker with Great Northeast Productions Inc., producers of the “It” festival, was seriously injured in a fall from a staging tower at Loring Air Force Base in Limestone.

Douglas Born, 42, of Auburn was in fair condition Friday afternoon at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Born, a union stagehand, fell 35 feet off the second-floor roof of staging where he was working just before 10 p.m. Tuesday. He suffered extensive internal injuries.

A concert organizer, James Willox, 43, of Dedham, Mass. was killed when his car went off the road early Sunday as he returned to a Caribou hotel from the concert venue.