BANGOR – A Carroll Plantation man who 16 years ago tried to rescue a friend in a horrific underwater accident at Ripogenus Dam was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court to 16 months in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Brian Michaud, 42, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release after his release from federal prison.

Michaud was arrested in November 2004 after a woman told police shots had been fired outside her home. From a description of the truck given by neighbors, a Penobscot County sheriff’s deputy spotted the two-tone pickup truck a short distance away.

Police found a handgun and ammunition in the truck, according to court documents. Michaud, who was a passenger, admitted he had fired four or five shots into the air near the Cobb resident “in order to get someone’s attention.”

Michaud was arrested after acknowledging he was a convicted felon and was not supposed to have a gun. His blood alcohol level the night of his arrest was 0.16, twice the legal limit for driving.

Michaud originally was released on bail. The bail was revoked after police were called to his residence for a domestic dispute on Christmas Eve. Michaud was found in a hidden compartment in a bedroom closet. He smelled of alcohol, according to court documents.

Michaud was barred from owning a firearm because he was convicted in 1989 of aggravated criminal mischief in Washington County and in 1991 of assault on an officer in Penobscot County.

Now a carpenter, Michaud was a diver in January 1989 when he was called to Ripogenus Dam, where two divers were trapped underwater while trying to repair the dam. The dam was then owned by Great Northern Nekoosa Corp.

Albert Harjula and Daniel Sullivan had been told to cut holes in the gate of the dam to let the water in, rather than bring in pumps to change the water pressure. Harjula was sucked into the hole he had cut, and Sullivan, Michaud’s friend, got pulled into another hole when he tried to rescue him.

Michaud was trying to pull his friend’s leg out of the hole 55 feet underwater when rescue workers on the surface pulled Sullivan out with a harness. Sullivan’s leg was ripped off, and he and Michaud were taken by ambulance to the hospital. Sullivan and Harjula died. Michaud survived, but suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the mid-1990s, Michaud sued the paper mill and an Augusta construction firm, claiming the companies were liable for the emotional trauma he had suffered during the rescue. He lost the case in Penobscot County Superior Court.

That decision was upheld in 1998 by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court because only family members of victims were allowed to sue for damages and the applicable law had never been applied to purely psychological injuries, the state’s high court ruled.

Families of the divers killed in the accident reached out-of-court settlements with the defendants several years before Michaud’s case was filed.