MEDWAY – Pat Carroll immediately sensed danger as his 18-wheel tractor-trailer topped a steep hill at 7 a.m. Friday on Route 157 at the long, gentle curve between Salmon Stream and the Penobscot River.

Carroll, of Lee, later told Jeremy Williams, director of safety and maintenance at Central Maine Transport of Bangor, that he suddenly stopped seeing water under the wheels of his truck.

“It’s a bad sign,” Williams said Friday. “When you see mist, you know you’re riding on water. When you don’t, you know you’re probably on ice.”

Any doubts died in seconds. Carroll threw the CMT truck into neutral as it started slowly down the hill, but it didn’t help much. The truck jackknifed and rammed a guardrail on the slick surface at the bottom of the hill. The trailer, loaded with several tons of starch bound for the Katahdin Paper Co. mill in Millinocket, wrenched the truck again as it shot by, heading west.

Incredibly, the trailer stayed on the road as it carried forward on its own another 325 feet before stopping in the left-hand lane. Carroll was not injured, said Officer Cameron McDunnah of the East Millinocket Police Department.

Equally strange, and fortunate: The logging and wood chip trucks right behind Carroll narrowly missed hitting his truck and trailer as their drivers struggled to control them as they came down the hill on the slick surface.

“It could really have been a huge mess here if any of the three collided,” said Medway volunteer Assistant Fire Chief John Lee.

“They just barely eked by,” Williams said.

Only a small Subaru wagon driven by Leon Markie Jr. of East Millinocket hit debris from the truck, McDunnah said, causing minor front-end damage. Carroll was not cited by police, and McDunnah said he didn’t expect he would be.

Traffic was reduced to one lane until 2 p.m. as wreckers cleared the truck from the scene, and workers from Clean Harbors Environmental Services of Hampden cleaned up about 150 gallons of diesel fuel, some engine oil and a large sack of starch – used at the mill to coat magazine paper, Williams said.

Environmental damage to the stream or river likely will be minimal, said Thomas W. Varney, an oil and hazardous materials specialist for the state Department of Environmental Protection, who coordinated the cleanup.

Medway firefighters saved the river from damage by soaking up oil and gasoline with polypropylene pads, Lee said.

Varney estimated the cleanup would cost $15,000.