Three people were killed in two separate accidents in Waldo County on Wednesday after drivers lost control of their vehicles on slick, snow-coated roads.
A mother and her 15-year-old daughter were killed at about 7:50 a.m. Wednesday when the mother lost control of her Subaru Outback on Bailey Road in Knox and slid into the path of a tanker truck, according to police.
Then at about 11 a.m. a University of Maine student driving to a final exam skidded into a utility pole on Route 9 in Troy and died at the scene, police said.
Laura Breault, 48, of Knox was driving her daughter Jessica, 15, to school when she lost control of her vehicle and skidded into the path of the oncoming 18-wheeler, according to Chief Deputy Bob Keating of the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office. The tanker truck, driven by Daniel Crockett Sr., 44, of Rome, struck the Subaru broadside on the passenger side.
Keating said police believe the victims died instantly.
Crockett was not injured. The tanker, owned by M.A. Haskell and Sons of Palermo, was hauling milk.
In Troy, David E. Brown, 18, passed another vehicle on Route 9 and soon afterward lost control of his 1994 Jeep Cherokee, according to Keating. The vehicle skidded and smashed broadside on the driver’s side into the utility pole, snapping it off. Brown was pronounced dead at the scene.
The falling pole dragged live wires down onto Route 9, which was shut down for about an hour before one lane could be cleared and reopened to traffic.
The two fatal crashes were among nine accident reports that the sheriff’s office had responded to by early Wednesday afternoon as 3 to 5 inches of snow fell on the region, Keating said.
“It’s very slippery out there,” he said.
Jessica Breault, who was killed in the Knox accident, was a student at Lighthouse Christian Academy in Brooks, a small school connected to the Brooks Pentecostal Church.
The school was deserted early Wednesday afternoon, and a woman at the home next door who works there said classes were canceled after the accident. About 20 students attend the school, the woman said.
Efforts to reach Pastor Matthew Shaw of the church were unsuccessful. Keating said that the family’s pastor is also a rescue worker and that he helped at the scene of the accident earlier in the day.
Brown, who died in the Troy accident, was a first-year physics major at the University of Maine in Orono, according to university spokesman Joe Carr.
“The UMaine community is stunned and saddened by David’s untimely death,” Robert Dana, the university’s vice president for student affairs and dean of students, said in a press release issued Wednesday afternoon. “The loss of a student is a tragedy, which strikes at the core of our community. Our thoughts and sympathies are with David’s family and friends during this terribly difficult time.”
According to police, Brown’s parents live in Missouri, and he had been living with relatives in Unity while attending UMaine.