To the Editor:
Dateline – Wiscasset, Jan. 20, 2014 – A senior town maintenance worker survived a dunking in the frigid Sheepscot River today when the old commercial pier there finally gave way while he was backing out and dumping a load of snow from this past weekend’s record snow fall. He was in the town’s new dump truck at the time and the truck was destroyed. Fellow workers and local fishermen rushed over and were relieved to see a shocked and unhappy driver pop to the surface waving his arms and calling for help.
The driver was helped out of the water and rushed to the hospital where he was stabilized and checked out – a little the worse for the wear and the fright of it all. His only comment was a shocked and shaking “Oh daddy, Oh daddy, I wish we had re-built the pier when we had a chance a few years ago!”
Town workers had come to wearing life vests, paid for out of their own pockets, when backing the big trucks out on the pier since voters had voted down improvements for the pier and a vest was credited with bobbing the driver to the surface and quickly saving his life.
Town engineers had been telling the voters for years that the pilings were rotted at the mud line and were no thicker than ‘toothpicks and it was only a matter of time before they broke under a load. Witnesses said the pier “wiggled back and forth for a few seconds just before the trucks rear wheels punched through the rotting deck, then the whole truck vanished through the pier.”
The cold wintry water swallowed the entire truck. Local marine salvage operations will remove the truck in the spring.
Bryan Buck
Wiscasset
