
A Maine State Police trooper and the driver he had pulled over were both injured Saturday night when another vehicle rear-ended the trooper’s cruiser during a traffic stop.
It was the third wreck involving a state police cruiser in two days.
Maine Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss said the trooper, Patrick Flanagan, was conducting a traffic stop at about 7:30 p.m. with his emergency lights on near Maine Turnpike mile marker 32 southbound in Biddeford when another vehicle struck the rear of his cruiser. The force caused the cruiser to spin and strike the vehicle he had pulled over.
Flanagan suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to a hospital in Portland. The driver of the vehicle that was pulled over sustained minor injuries, Moss said.
The driver of the vehicle that struck the cruiser, 25-year-old Xianying Yu, of Allston, Massachusetts, also received minor injuries and was taken to a hospital in Biddeford. Yu was summonsed for failing to keep right.
Two other Maine State Police cruisers were struck just a day earlier in separate collisions in Lewiston and Gouldsboro.
The first crash happened shortly after midnight Friday, as a trooper was heading north on the Maine Turnpike in Lewiston, Moss said. The trooper was responding to a crash in Gardiner with his emergency lights and sirens on. Javier Martinez, 24, of Waterville, swerved into the trooper’s lane and hit the right side of the cruiser. He was summonsed on a charge of operating under the influence of alcohol.
The second crash Friday occurred right after another trooper got back into his cruiser following a traffic stop on Route 1 in Gouldsboro. His cruiser’s emergency lights were still flashing when the vehicle was sideswiped by a Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by Andrew Pratt, 71, of Cutler, Moss said.
No one was injured in either of the collisions Friday.
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