State Reps. Leila Percy and Nancy Smith sat in the waiting room of an Augusta clinic Friday evening bruised and shaken but thankful their injuries weren’t worse.
“O.K., let’s count the ways we didn’t die,” said sore-shouldered Smith, a Democrat from Monmouth, ticking them off on her fingers. “We weren’t pulled under the trailer … there was no car there … the rig from the trailer went into the trees … we jumped over the guardrail … there were no trees over the embankment. There wasn’t a solid hit from it.”
“We were very, very lucky,” said Percy, a Democrat from Phippsburg, who was driving.
The legislators were traveling south on Interstate 295 at about 5:30 p.m. Jan. 15 when they collided with a tractor-trailer truck. The accident left the truck rolled over in the median and Percy’s car deep over an embankment, but no one was seriously injured. Still, the legislators said the quick response by rescue workers and other motorists reinforced for them the importance of public services and the character of Maine people.
Percy and Smith were going to a Harpswell Business Association meeting in Brunswick to talk about the Legislature’s economic development activities when Smith called Rep. Thom Watson, D-Bath, who was also going to the meeting, to say they were running late.
“Nancy said they were just about at the Bowdoinham exit,” said Watson. “Then I heard Leila holler and Nancy yelled that there was tractor-trailer truck and they were in the middle of an accident. I could hear the mechanical sounds of it.”
“I looked over at Leila and the wheels were right behind her head,” said Smith.
The truck ground Percy’s 2004 Volkswagen Passat against the guardrail before it “broke away,” said Percy, and overturned more than 100 feet away. The Passat veered across the road, launched off a snow bank and skimmed a guardrail before plunging down a steep embankment.
“They are two lucky ladies,” said Watson, who went to the accident scene to retrieve Smith and Percy. “Just seeing the condition of the vehicle and then walking down into the ditch, it really hit me how lucky they are.”
State Trooper Jonathan Leach of Troop D out of Thomaston agreed.
“All parties involved were very lucky,” said Leach. “They were in his blind spot.”
The truck driver was taken to Mid Coast Hospital with a cut on the arm, but his injuries were not serious, said Leach. There were no charges.
Percy and Smith, who were back in the State House Friday as conversations about their accident spread, said their enduring memory is of people showing up “out of nowhere,” said Percy, to help.
After calling 911, and making sure Percy was OK, Smith climbed the snowy embankment to check on the trucker. That’s when people began to arrive.
First, there were two emergency medical technicians from Sidney, who happened to be traveling through. Several other motorists stopped as well and within minutes, officers from Bowdoinham Fire Department, North East Ambulance, Maine State Police, Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Department and the Maine Department of Transportation began to arrive.
“They were really heroes,” said Percy. “When we talk about not having enough money in this state for services, these are the kind of services we need.”
“It shows that we really have to divvy up our resources, that everything is important,” said Smith.
A doctor at the Augusta clinic said Smith might require some physical therapy to help her shoulder heal correctly, but other than that she and Percy were uninjured. Smith said the accident is causing her to wonder about bigger questions.
“Why do we survive a colossal accident when other people don’t?” she said. “There’s no answer to this, but you keep it in mind as you try to find your place in the universe.”
“It hit me when they pulled the car up and I saw the back wheel,” said Percy. “I couldn’t believe we had gotten out of that.”
(Statehouse News Service)
