WELLS, ME : Brockton man, 19, killed in Maine crash on Tuesday, 21st August 2018

A 19-year-old Brockton man was killed and another city man was injured Tuesday morning in a violent crash on a Maine turnpike.

Police say Uriel Vasquez was killed in the single-vehicle crash on the Maine Turnpike after the car he was a passenger in struck the median guardrail and slammed into trees over the guardrail on the opposite side of Route 95.

The crash happened on the northern side of the highway in Wells, prior to exit 19, before 6:30 a.m., on Tuesday.

The driver of the car, who Maine State Police police identified as 54-year-old Gabino Ortiz, was taken by ambulance to Maine Medical Center in Portland with non-life-threatening injuries.

“Initial indications are speed is a factor as the car struck the median guardrail and then crossed the northbound lanes and slammed into a group of trees off the breakdown lane,” state police said in a written statement.

An image of the crash posted on Main State Police’s Facebook page shows the silver van sustained heavy damage. A tree appears to have impaled the driver’s-side rear window, but it wasn’t immediately clear how it occurred.

State police say they learned the men were headed to a job site near Saco to perform drywall work.

The pair appear to work for UOB Drywall Inc., a Brockton-based company which is owned by Uriel Orland Barrera Vasquez. The business is licensed in Massachusetts and was established with the state’s Corporations Division on June 8 of this year.

Police say Ortiz was driving without a license and received a citation. He hadn’t been criminally charged in the crash as of late Wednesday afternoon.

The crash remains under investigation.

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