Members of the Hampden ambulance and police departments rushed to the scene of a reported car accident Wednesday night to find a young Winterport man struggling with his car, which had blown a radiator hose.

A passer-by had called emergency officials at about 9:15 p.m. Wednesday and reported seeing a person slumped over the wheel of a car, Hampden police Officer Scott Jakins said Thursday night. Officials arrived near the intersection of the Kennebec and Back Winterport roads and found the exasperated young man trying to work with his car as it spewed steam and radiator fluid.

The man, whom police could not identify, made it home on his own, unharmed.

Old Town fire and police officials converged on the parking lot of Lincoln Green Apartments on Shelter Lane on Thursday afternoon after overcooked popcorn caused a Dumpster fire.

A Dumpster nearly one-third full caught fire when a woman living in one of the nearby apartments burned a bag of popcorn and threw it into a parking lot Dumpster after it had started to fill her home with smoke, Old Town fire Assistant Chief Roger Sirois said. Officials were surprised that enough heat had remained in the bag to cause a fire, but more than four bags of garbage were burned in the ensuing blaze. Firefighters extinguished the fire in about 10 minutes.

A New Hampshire woman was arrested Wednesday night after she was caught allegedly stealing shoes from Burlington Coat Factory, 229 Springer Drive, in Bangor.

Tia L. Dearborn, 18, of Manchester, N.H., and also a student at Penobscot Job Corps, was summoned to appear in 3rd District Court in Bangor on Jan. 27 after she repeatedly set off the store’s anti-theft system, Bangor police Officer James Hassard said. Dearborn had tried to leave the store at about 9 p.m., but the alarm sounded. When she re-entered the store the alarm again went off.

Store officials had Dearborn empty her pockets and walk through the detector one more time before they noticed tags on the boots she was wearing, Hassard said. The black leather Timberland boots, valued at $59.98, were returned to the store. A store employee found a pair of older shoes in a shoe rack in the store. Dearborn claimed the shoes were her friend’s, however, and police released the shoes into her custody.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Derek Breton