WATERVILLE — A motorcyclist was hospitalized in serious condition Monday after his bike collided with a car at the intersection of Western Avenue and Pleasant Street.

Emergency crews arrived after the 10:41 a.m. accident to find the motorcyclist, Larry Brown, 46, lying in the middle of Western Avenue about 20 feet from his motorcycle. The driver of the car, Timothy Attaya, 74, was standing at the corner of Western Avenue and Pleasant Street, where his 2002 Chevrolet Impala had crashed into a tree.

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A male motorcycle operator is treated at the scene and later transported to the hospital following a collision with a vehicle at the intersection of Pleasant Street and Western Avenue in Waterville on Monday, June 23, 2014.

Brown was taken to Thayer Center for Health on North Street after the accident and later transferred to MaineGeneral Medical Center. He was in serious condition Monday afternoon, according to a Thayer spokeswoman.

Police Sgt. Dan Goss said later that the Impala was traveling east toward Elm Street and was turning left onto Pleasant Street when the crash occurred. The 2007 Suzuki motorcycle was traveling west on Western Avenue toward Cool Street.

Goss said that Attaya didn’t see the motorcycle as he turned, and the motorcycle hit the front passenger sice of the car just behind the car’s front fender.

Brown was thrown over the car and landed on the pavement, according to Goss.

“It doesn’t take much to launch somebody,” he said. “You don’t realize how fast 25 miles per hour is. When you think about it, you walk at about three to four miles an hour, so that’s six to seven times faster than you walk.”

Goss said Brown was conscious and talking to Delta Ambulance workers at the scene.

“We definitely have some chest trauma and head trauma,” Goss said. He said Brown was not wearing a helmet.

Goss said Attaya was checked out by medical personnel at the scene and did not appear to be injured.

Waterville Mayor Karen Heck, who lives nearby, was at the scene. She said she was just about to start painting her porch when she heard the crash and dialed 911.

“It’s a horrible sound,” Heck said, as emergency crews loaded Brown into the ambulance.

Heck said she heard the injured man say his back hurt as medical technicians attended to him.

“I stood by him so that the sun wasn’t in his face,” she said.

A woman who rushed to the scene and knelt beside Brown identified herself as Wendy Aucoin. “We heard on the scanner that they called trauma at the hospital and we walked down to see,” Aucoin said. “We heard there was a motorcycle accident.”

She said Brown is a Waterville school bus driver and a close friend. “The sad part about it is that his kids lost their mother in a car accident, so the minute I heard that on the scanner, it scared me,” she said.”

After Brown was loaded into the ambulance, she said he was clearly hurting.

“He was bleeding,” she said, “He kept saying, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.’ “

Attaya said he was driving toward Elm Street on Western Avenue and didn’t see Brown approaching.

“I had just left the lot where I bought my car — I bought it yesterday,” he said. “I never saw him (Brown) till he hit.”

The air bags in the Chevrolet deployed. The passenger door of the Chevrolet was heavily damaged. Attaya said at the scene that he thought he was OK.

“I think so — I haven’t had any ill effects,” he said.

Amy Calder — 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @AmyCalder17

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