Woman injured when SUV hits logging truck

MATTAWAMKEAG – A Medway woman was seriously injured when she was thrown from her sport utility vehicle after it slammed into a fully loaded logging truck Tuesday and careened off Medway Road shortly after noon.

When Mattawamkeag volunteer firefighters arrived, Daisy Bates, 20, had a compound fracture of her left leg and might also have suffered a broken right leg, broken left arm and internal injuries. She had blood coming from her mouth and head, firefighters and witnesses said.

“She was saying things like, “Help me! I’m cold! My foot is cold. Please get me off the ground,'” said Lucretia McAlpine, 36, a Mattawamkeag volunteer firefighter who was installing a wood floor in her kitchen at 133 Medway Road when she heard the crash.

Another resident, at 116 Medway Road, said the collision and the truck’s landing in a drainage ditch on the east side of Medway Road vibrated dust from his basement ceiling. He said he could hear Bates screaming as she lay in his front yard.

McAlpine and resident Shirley Brackett used their vehicles to block Medway Road traffic as the man in the house called 911. McAlpine and volunteer firefighters Kendra Evans, Paula Hammond and Beth Peters covered Bates with blankets and gave her first aid until an East Millinocket Fire Department ambulance arrived.

An ambulance from Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln was called but was on another call, Hammond said.

The force of the collision and the spin of the Chevy Yukon ripped off Bates’ shoes. One was found on the floor of her vehicle near the accelerator, the other in the middle of the road, witnesses said. Part of the driver’s-side door also was caught up in the body of the truck and parts of the vehicles littered the road. It was not known if she was wearing a seat belt. Air bags in the vehicle deployed.

Bates was in serious condition at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor late Tuesday, police said.

The truck driver, Russell Linscott of Kingman, suffered minor bruises. He told police he was driving a load of soft fir logs from a Bridgewater logging site for his company, Hanington Bros. Inc. of Macwahoc Plantation, to the Katahdin Paper Co. mill in East Millinocket when he saw Bates’ Yukon heading east toward him, company owner Stephen Hanington said.

As the vehicles got closer together, the Yukon veered toward him and he turned toward a drainage ditch alongside the road to avoid the collision, Hanington said. Linscott has a clean driving record and has worked for the company for more than 10 years, Hanington said.

“He’s very cautious, and we have an exemplary safety program,” Hanington said.

Detective Bill Flagg of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department said it appears that Linscott’s account is accurate, but police are inspecting the vehicles for malfunctions or safety violations and continue to interview witnesses. Witnesses not yet interviewed should call 947-4585.

The vehicles were taken to East Millinocket’s Public Safety Building for examination Tuesday night. Investigators from the sheriff’s office, state police and the Maine Department of Transportation’s Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement unit are working the case, Flagg said.