Crash victims ‘doing better than expected’

WARREN – Two teenagers seriously injured in a U.S. Route 1 collision with a tractor-trailer Monday were “doing better than expected,” the trooper investigating the crash said Tuesday.

No charges are anticipated from the three-vehicle accident, Trooper Terry Michaud said.

Nine people, including eight teens, were in the three vehicles. Five of the teens were treated and then released from a local hospital. One was treated at the scene.

On Tuesday, Michaud said injuries to James Walsh of Warren and Kyle Kunesh of Union did not appear to be life-threatening and that both were doing better than expected. Walsh had been taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Kunesh was flown to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

“[Seat] belts did help, I believe,” Michaud said, and there was “no enormous amount of speed.”

The accident occurred Monday afternoon. Walsh and Kunesh were riding in the front seat of a vehicle carrying four other Medomak Valley High School students. The car was rear-ended by a car occupied by two classmates.

The force of the collision pushed the carload of teens into the path of a tractor-trailer. All of the youths had just left school for the day.