THORNDIKE — Eight people were injured Sunday, including a woman who was taken by helicopter to a Bangor hospital, after a van carrying nine College of the Atlantic students and traveling north on Route 220 tried to turn west onto Crosby Brook Road and collided with an oncoming van traveling south on 220, according to police.
State police Trooper Bethany Robinson, who was at the scene, said it appeared the College of the Atlantic van, a silver 2014 GMC Savana, turned in front of the other van, a 1996 white Ford conversion van.
“At this point it appears the GMC Savana failed to yield right-of-way to the oncoming conversion van driven by someone from out of state,” Robinson said. She said later Sunday that no charges would be filed in the accident.
A female student in the GMC Savana van suffered a head injury and was taken by Lifeflight helicopter to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Robinson said just before 3 p.m. that the student was in stable condition with non life-threatening injuries.
Injuries to the other students, including the male driver, appeared to be non life-threatening and they were taken to Inland Hospital in Waterville, Robinson said. Two students in the GMC Savana refused medical treatment, she said.
The driver of the Ford conversion van is from Pennsylvania, and he was taken to Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast where he was being treated Sunday afternoon for multiple broken bones, according to Robinson. She said he was traveling alone at the time of the crash.
She would not release the names of either driver, saying they had not yet been able to notify their relatives of the accident.
The spectacular crash, which was reported at 11:45 a.m., drew a large response from not only state police, but also Thorndike and Unity fire departments, Brooks Ambulance, Unity Ambulance, Sebasticook Valley Ambulance and Delta Ambulance.
“Everyone worked really well together to keep everything safe,” Robinson said.
At the scene, the GMC Savana was in the ditch off Crosby Brook Road, facing Route 220, its entire right passenger side bashed in, the windows broken and gray metal twisted around the rear wheel. The Ford van was on Route 220 facing the GMC Savana, its front smashed in and windshield broken. Both vans were destroyed, according to Robinson.
At the time of the crash, the GMC Savana was taking students from the college in Bar Harbor to the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s Common Ground fairgrounds in Unity and was about a half-mile from the fairgrounds.
“It was a field trip to the Common Ground exhibition hall for Great Maine Apple Day,” said Todd Little-Siebold, a history professor from College of the Atlantic who had already arrived at the fairgrounds with two students in a separate vehicle when the crash occurred.
Little-Siebold said the students traveling in the van were shaken up by the accident.
“One student broke a tooth,” he said.
After crash victims were taken to hospitals, Little-Siebold was in a group of people helping and comforting a young man and woman who appeared to be two students not taken to hospitals. Little-Siebold later emptied the GMC Savana of backpacks, clothes, tote bags and other belongings, including a white bicycle that was in the rear of the van whose back door was open, and apples were tumbling out of it onto the ground.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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