CHARLOTTE – An 87-year-old Lubec man on Tuesday lost control of the late-model GMC pickup truck he was driving and slammed into a utility pole on Smith Ridge Road.

Clifford A. Ryerson was taken by ambulance to Calais Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The accident happened around 12:30 p.m. Ryerson was about 21/2 miles from Ayers Junction Road when the accident happened. Smith Ridge Road is a popular shortcut for people traveling to Calais.

Trooper Barry Curtis of the Maine State Police said Tuesday that a passerby came upon the accident and called police.

“The area that the accident actually happened in was a downhill area with a hard right. He went straight [down the embankment] and his vehicle tipped up and struck a pole around the windshield area on the driver’s side,” the trooper said.

Ryerson was not wearing a seat belt.

Neither alcohol nor speed was a factor in the accident, the trooper said. “It could have been a health issue at that age.”

Emergency personnel working with an extraction device had to remove Ryerson from the vehicle because his leg had caught under the dash.

The Charlotte and Calais fire departments, the Dennysville Ambulance and two troopers assisted at the scene.

According to neighbors, Ryerson, who was born and raised in Lubec and was a World War II veteran, lived in the downtown area of Lubec. He worked for a time for the former Quoddy Chevrolet Garage in Machias as a bookkeeper and later for a car repair business in Lubec.

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