HERMON, Maine — A Carmel man was taken to a Bangor hospital Wednesday afternoon for treatment of facial cuts and chest bruises he suffered when the car he was driving struck a utility pole.
Peter Parsons, 18, was driving a 1989 Plymouth Sundance on the Cold Brook Road about 2:40 p.m. when the car drifted off the right side of the roadway and struck several mailboxes, Deputy Jay Hallett of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday.
The car then drifted across to the other side of the roadway, jumped a curb, drove onto a lawn and struck a utility pole broadside on the passenger’s side, breaking the pole, Hallett said.
He said the car, which wrapped itself around the pole, was a total loss.
“This was an accident that easily could have been a fatal if someone had been sitting in the passenger seat,” Hallett said.
Parsons was treated at St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor and released, a nursing supervisor said Wednesday night.
Hallett said that while the accident remained under investigation Wednesday, it might have been caused by a medical problem, possibly heat stroke.
He said Wednesday’s weather was hot and humid, and Parsons said he had not had much water to drink that day.