One person sent to hospital after truck falls off I-95 overpass in Howland

HOWLAND, Maine (WABI) - Police say one person was taken to the hospital Thursday after a truck hauling a trailer filled with snowmobiles hit a patch of ice and went flying off an I-95 overpass in Howland.

“We don’t come to this very often where they come off the Interstate and drop about 20-25 feet,” said Patrick O’Kane, Assistant Fire Chief in Howland.

One person was sent to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries while the other two in the vehicle remained on scene.

“I thought it’d be a lot worse than what it was. One gentleman was taken to the hospital with a deep laceration, and that was it. And the other ones are here just taking care of the snowmobiles and taking care of everything else that got destroyed in the crash,” said Trooper Kari Kurth of the Maine State Police.

“I do consider them pretty lucky. The fact that they’re traveling 75 miles an hour and they made this fall with no major or life threatening injuries,” said O’Kane.

“They’re pretty shooken up. They’re pretty upset about the whole thing. Glad to be alive, but they’re pretty disappointed in what happened,” said Trooper Kurth.

Once the truck was towed away, the next step was to work on freeing the snowmobiles from the damaged trailer.

“So, the wrecking crew pulled out three of them with the wrecker. One of them they drove right out of the trailer with minor damage, cosmetic issues on the sleds is what it looks like,” said O’Kane.

The road was closed for more than two hours while crews also dealt with downed wires.

“Fire departments around the area, especially the small communities, we train and train and train for everything we can do. It’s hard to train for a vehicle falling 20-25 feet off a bridge,” said O’Kane.

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