BELFAST – A Liberty man was rushed by ambulance to a Bangor hospital early Wednesday after he apparently fell asleep at the wheel and crashed on Route 3.

A LifeFlight helicopter arrived to transport Dennis Edgecomb, 36, of Liberty to Eastern Maine Medical Center but it lost an engine so Edgecomb was taken to the hospital by ambulance. The LifeFlight attendants rode with him back to Bangor.

Police Chief Jeffrey Trafton said Edgecomb was traveling west on Route 3 in a 1996 Pontiac Bonneville at 11:24 p.m. Tuesday when the car left the road on the back side of Hayford Hill, struck a culvert, went airborne for 63 feet, hit a tree and came to rest after hitting a rock.

Trafton said Edgecomb was unresponsive when Officer Brian Lunt arrived at the scene. Rescue personnel from the Belfast Fire and Ambulance Department went to the scene and transported Edgecomb to the Belfast Airport for an emergency flight to Bangor. When the helicopter developed engine trouble, the ambulance went to Bangor instead. Trafton did not have a report on Edgecomb’s condition. Waldo County Deputy Sheriff Ben Seekins performed the accident reconstruction.