Two women injured, vehicles destroyed in Dedham wreck

DEDHAM – Two women escaped serious injury but their vehicles were destroyed after they collided Friday afternoon on Route 1A in front of the local town office, according to police.

Tracy Collins, 21, of Brewer, was driving a 1998 Saturn toward Bangor a few minutes after noon when she apparently crossed the centerline of the highway, Hancock County Deputy Sheriff Shane Campbell said.

The Saturn struck the driver’s side of a northbound 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee in front of the Dedham Town Office, snapping the Jeep’s rear axle and causing it to flip twice end-over-end before it came to rest on its roof, he said. The Saturn did not flip over and came to rest by the northbound side of the road.

Neither Collins nor the driver of the Jeep, Sandra Albair of Hampden, appeared to have suffered serious injuries in the accident, according to Campbell. Each was taken by ambulance to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor after the collision, he said.

Albair, 53, and Collins, each had been treated and then released from the Bangor hospital by early Friday evening, according to a nursing supervisor.

Campbell said there is some speculation Collins may have dozed off behind the wheel.

“She was up for two days writing a term paper,” the deputy said of Collins. The student told a Dedham town employee who came outside to help that she had been to Bar Harbor to interview someone and was returning to the Bangor area when the accident occurred, he said.

Albair and Collins each were wearing seat belts during the accident, according to Campbell. Side-impact air bags in the Jeep may have helped prevent more serious injury to Albair, he said.

“She fared really well out of the accident,” the deputy said.

Campbell said the Jeep and probably the Saturn were demolished in the collision.

Traffic on the highway was slowed for about two hours as emergency crews responded to the accident scene. Traffic south of the accident backed up toward Ellsworth for nearly a mile and a half before the drivers were transported to the hospital and the damaged vehicles were taken away.