Power to thousands of Central Maine Power Co. customers in Gorham was eventually restored Thursday after a Westbrook Public Works Department dump truck rolled into a utility pole.

Gorham Deputy Police Chief Christopher Sanborn said in a statement that 69-year-old Blair Reynolds of Westbrook was driving the 2004 International dump truck around 8:30 a.m. as it was leaving the Gorham Public Works facility on Gasoline Alley.

Police said Reynolds didn’t lower the dump truck body after depositing a load of brush at the facility. The dump hit electrical wires and the truck began to slide off the road.

Sanborn said the dump truck hit an embankment and rolled over into a utility pole, breaking the pole in half. The truck landed on its right side, with the top half of the pole and electrical wires still resting on the dump body.

Reynolds was ordered to stay inside the truck until CMP crews arrived and shut off the power so that he could be removed safely. Reynolds was able to climb out of the truck’s cab and down a ladder provided by the fire department.

Immediately following the crash, CMP reported that over 4,000 customers in Gorham, Windham and Standish were without power at 9 a.m., but by noontime, the utility had restored power to all but just over 2,000 customers. Everyone affected by the outage had their power back by early Thursday evening.

Reynolds was not injured and will not be charged, according to Sanborn.


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