Man falls from tree while hunting deer

A St. Albans hunter, who had climbed a tree Monday afternoon to get a better look at a couple of deer he was hunting, fell and broke a bone in his lower back, Game Warden Aaron Cross said Tuesday.

Brian Gervais, 31, was hunting alone on his aunt’s property in the woods off Nokomis Road in St. Albans when the incident occurred just after 3 p.m. Gervais was carrying a cell phone and he called his aunt after the fall. She called 911.

“When he went to pull his gun up so he could look through the scope, he lost his balance and fell” about 12 feet, breaking his L-1 vertebra, Cross said.

Gervais, who also hurt his ankle in the fall, was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and was getting a body cast, the warden said. An EMMC official said late Tuesday afternoon that Gervais was in fair condition. (Nok-Noi Ricker, BDN)

A fire alarm Tuesday at Bangor High School, one of the city’s four polling places, temporarily halted the democratic process.

The alarm turned out to be a false one, according to Bangor Assistant Fire Chief Scott Bostock.

“Somebody pulled a pull station” at the school at 4:57 p.m., prompting the evacuation of everyone inside, Bostock said.

“There’s a suspect. It’s been turned over to the police,” Bostock said.

Police said they had interviewed an adult male suspect outside the school Tuesday afternoon. No charges had been filed by Tuesday evening, but police said the man is known to them. Police declined to release his name and age. The man is believed to have entered the school through an unsecured door and pulled the alarm, police said.

Because Tuesday was Election Day, the evacuees including residents who were at the school to vote in the national, state and local elections.

The building was reopened less than half an hour later, after firefighters checked the school and found no fire.

Police said the incident remains under investigation. (Dawn Gagnon, BDN)