Liberty, ME : Box truck crashed into gas pumps at a service station on Route 3 in Waldo County on Tuesday morning, May 3, 2016

A driver was hospitalized with significant injuries and heavily trafficked Route 3 was shut down for several hours Tuesday morning after a box truck left the road and hit gas pumps at a service station.

Driver John Hespe, 60, of New Gloucester, had been driving a 2015 Isuzu box truck at about 4 a.m. when the accident happened, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office. Hespe went off the road, struck and knocked down power lines and then hit both fuel pumps at the Circle K convenience store, a caller reported to police shortly after the crash.

Hespe had to be extricated from the truck and then was taken to Maine General Hospital in Portland by Liberty Ambulance, according to the report from the sheriff’s office. Police indicated that Hespe suffered significant injuries in the crash.

Emergency crews closed the road and rerouted traffic while they cleaned up after the accident. Route 3 was opened back up at about noon, according to a Waldo County emergency dispatcher. In addition to the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office, fire departments from Liberty, Montville, Palermo, Searsmont and Belmont also responded to the accident, the cause of which remains under investigation.

Deputy Merl Reed is the primary investigating deputy and Sgt. Ken Smith of the Rockland Police Department and Detective Gerry Lincoln of the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office are working on the accident reconstruction, according to the release. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection, the Maine State Police commercial vehicle division, Fairpoint Communications and Central Maine Power also responded to the scene of the accident.

Source :
Truck crashes into gas pumps off Route 3 in Liberty