A Millinocket teen died early Tuesday when the car he was driving apparently hit and killed a moose in the area of 789 Poplar St. in T3 Indian Purchase, state police said.

Landon Gardner, 17, was discovered dead behind the wheel of the vehicle after having apparently hit the moose and gone off the road and into trees just after midnight Monday, Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss said in an emailed statement. The dead moose was in the middle of the road, Moss said.

The Bangor Regional Communications Center received an automatic crash notification at 12:06 a.m. Tuesday. The notification is a safety feature found in some modern vehicles that detects when there is a collision, Moss said. Some smartphones also can detect a crash, or what might be a crash, and automatically initiate an emergency call. The alerts typically include the phone’s or vehicle’s GPS location, she said.

There was one fatal moose crash in 2018, one in 2020 and one so far in 2024, according to the Bureau of Highway Safety statistics.

Police are continuing to investigate the crash.