HAMPDEN – A Pittsfield woman died Friday and another underwent surgery for severe injuries after an early morning accident on Interstate 95.

Trooper Scott Hamilton of the Maine State Police said Whitney Hammond, 22, was driving north on the interstate around 4:30 a.m. when she may have fallen asleep at the wheel, overcorrected and taken her car into the median. Hammond’s 1998 Honda Civic rolled over three times and ended up facing south. The car was demolished.

Neither Hammond nor her passenger, Karyn Young, 29, of Bangor, was wearing a seat belt. Both were ejected from the vehicle, Hamilton said.

Hammond’s body was found a short distance from the vehicle and she was dead at the scene. Young was thrown into the southbound lane of I-95 and was taken by ambulance to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. She was listed in serious condition as of 6 p.m., according to a nursing supervisor.

Northbound traffic was reduced to one lane near the Coldbrook Road overpass in Hampden while police cleared the scene and reconstructed the accident, which remains under investigation. Both lanes opened in the morning, and the crash was not related to construction being done on the overpass, Hamilton said.

Hammond’s father, James Hammond, is an art teacher at Nokomis Regional High School in Newport and was a longtime teacher in SAD 53 in Pittsfield. His wife, Donna Hammond, is an elementary school teacher in Newport.

BDN writer Sharon Mack contributed to this report.

adolloff@bangordailynews.net

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