WATERVILLE – A boxed shower stall blew off the bed of a pickup truck on Interstate 95 in Waterville late Tuesday afternoon, causing one accident and nearly causing several others.

One passenger reported having a headache after the accident that occurred around 5:40 p.m. in the northbound lane about a quarter-mile from the Waterville on-ramp, near mile marker 131, said Trooper Bruce Scott.

The shower stall wasn’t secured in the 1998 Ford pickup and blew out, landing in the travel lane.

The driver of the pickup, Corey Pearson, 29, of Dexter, stopped in the breakdown lane about 100 feet up from the shower stall, but neither she nor her passenger retrieved the shower stall, Scott said.

The cardboard box the shower stall was in was hard to see in the darkness and was struck by a motorist a few minutes later, the trooper said.

Once it struck the shower stall, the 2003 Jaguar driven by Deborah Begin, 47, of Waterville spun out of control and struck the parked pickup. The car ended up facing in the opposite direction beside the truck.

“They were almost side to side when I got there,” Scott said.

Pearson and Begin were not injured, although Harold Hutchins, 38, of Dexter, a passenger in Pearson’s pickup, complained of a headache after the incident.

The Jaguar ended up partway in the travel lane. Scott stopped his cruiser behind it and out a little way as a security precaution. Despite this, he said, there were several close calls with motorists who weren’t prepared for what was ahead of them.

An off-duty state trooper dragged the shower stall box off the road and later a tow truck operator helped Pearson load it back onto the pickup and secure it.

Pearson could have moved the shower stall out of the way but did not do so, Scott said, and he summoned her on a charge of failure to clear an injurious substance from the way.

“It was one of those accidents that could have been avoided,” Scott said.