NEWPORT, Maine — A tractor-trailer truck driver told Maine State Police he crashed his truck into the woods Tuesday after a sneeze caused him to black out.
Stanley Gray, 43, of Bolivar, Mo., was headed north through Newport at mile marker 158 on Interstate 95 on his way to Van Buren to pick up a load when he fell unconscious and drove into the trees on the righthand side of the road at around 4:20 a.m., State Police Trooper Seth Edwards said Tuesday.
“He claims that he sneezed and that caused the muscles in his upper back to tighten up and he blacked out,” he said.
“I go with what they tell me,” he said. “I’m no doctor, so I can’t say.”
According to Edwards, the truck received damage “well into the thousands [of dollars].” The truck’s tires were flattened and the front axle broken, he said.
The truck was entirely in the woods, wedged among trees and large rocks, Edwards said.
Newport Police assisted State Police.
Bouchard & Sons Towing of Hampden was called in to remove the truck, which required cutting away trees and pulling out large rocks. The Bouchard crew spent nearly six hours cutting down trees and removing the rocks before finally removing the truck from the trees at around 12:30 p.m.
“It’s a total loss,” Wayne Bouchard said of the truck. He was still at the scene at 2:30 p.m.
“The rear end’s ripped out of it, the front end’s ripped out of it, and the drive axle’s torn out the frame,” he said.
“We had to call in an excavator” to remove the rocks and trees, he said. They also called in a hydroseeder to re-seed the torn-up grass.
After crews removed it from the trees, the truck was carried on a flatbed truck to the storage lot at Bouchard Towing in Hampden.
Police said alcohol was not a factor in the crash. Gray was wearing a seat belt, and was not injured.
“He has a cut on his forehead that was treated by the ambulance,” Edwards said. The driver refused transport to a hospital.
Edwards said the only passenger was a dog, who also was uninjured.
Police said Gray had stopped at the Pilot truck stop in Fairfield, but didn’t know the driver’s origin, or what he was going to pick up in Van Buren.
A representative for Landstar Ranger Inc., the driver’s employer in Jacksonville, Fla., declined to comment.