FREEPORT, Maine — An elderly man was killed and a Bangor-area woman badly injured in a wrong-way accident Wednesday night on Interstate 295.
Daniel Cressey Sr., 78, of Gorham was killed instantly in the crash and Mary Warner, 58, of Holden was hospitalized at Maine Medical Center in Portland with multiple injuries. Warner was in satisfactory condition Thursday morning, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
Maine State Police troopers are still investigating how Cressey ended up driving north in the interstate’s southbound lane at about 7 p.m., including retracing his activities in the hours before the crash, according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland. Investigators suspect the man entered I-295 from Mallet Drive in Freeport and drove north for about two miles, avoiding crashes with several other vehicles before colliding with Warner.
Few details about Cressey were available Thursday, but Rev. Dr. James Haddix, a minister at All Souls Congregational Church in Bangor, said Warner is an active member of his congregation and a prominent radiologist.
“A lot of us have been praying today for her and her family and also for the man who died and his family,” said Haddix.
Haddix said Warner was driving to the Boston area at the time of the crash for her job as a member of the Harvard University Medical School faculty at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Haddix said Warner’s husband, Dr. David Warner, who works in the Bangor area, told Haddix Thursday that Warner was in surgery and suffering from multiple injuries.
“She’s got a long recovery time ahead of her for certain,” said Haddix, who is close friends with the Warners. “It will take months.”
Mary Warner is a member of the board for the Phillips-Strickland House in Bangor, a nonprofit residential care facility, and one of the leaders of the church’s mission work in Honduras, where she has spent several years providing medical care in field clinics in that country.
Warner is also on the church’s executive board and will become its moderator next year, which is akin to being the board’s president.
“She gives a lot to other people,” said Haddix. “She is very well-known to a lot of people in the Bangor area.”
The southbound lane of I-295 was closed for about two hours Wednesday night while rescue crews cleared away the crashed vehicles and pieced together what happened. Traffic was backed up into Brunswick. Prior to the crash, emergency dispatchers had received numerous reports of a car traveling the wrong way on the interstate, according to McCausland.
A lot of this happening lately….ever feel like your hands are tied?
Surely a hard line to draw sometimes: When to pull an elderly persons drivers license. I’ve had to deal with this with an elderly relative before and in the end, the best decision was made for the safety of all. We found that being a passenger while the parent was driving around helped make the call. Almost like driving around with my teenaged daughter…very similar. Of course this is all moot if there is no one around in their life to do such a thing other than the state.
Annual driving tests for the elderly would go a long ways to solving this problem.
It’s been tried before and AARP screamed discrimination.Judges and lawmakers are terrified of this crowd since they vote and have nothing else to do but complain about their rights being violated.They are as dangerous as any drunk.
Let the record show that I am north of 65 years old and I think annual qualifications make a lot of sense.
Good for you.I wish more people thought that way.
Yes, driving tests–but for all!
Here is the thing, you can be a poor driver at any age.
If, as a society we are truly interested in road safety, we need to retest after the initial license. Why not do it on a periodic schedule that is easy to remember: ten year anniversaries from your very first license. Thus, start at age 16? Then at age 26 you get another written, vision, and road test. Same at ages 36, 46, 56, 66, 76, 86, 96, 106, etc.
You fail, you have 30 days to study up, get retrained, get new eyeglasses so you might pass again. People can be a menace on the road at any age: drinking problems, arrogance, inexperience, simple lack of knowledge.
Expensive, you say? Factor the cost of hospital bills, rehab, police, ambulance, fire, road workers, etc. Not to mention deaths. What is THAT cost?
Within a generation or two, the culture behind the wheel would change, and people would stop thinking they could *drive just fine after a few…* and other presumptions.
If we are truly serious about road safety….
How does that even happen?! Either he was out of his mind, or he did it on purpose. You would think if you get on the wrong side accidently, you would either stop, turn around or switch over, not continue to drive for 2 freakin’ miles. Clearly he wasn’t in the right state of mind….. So sad.
I travel I-95 daily. 2 years ago I encountered a person driving the wrong way. All the traffic pulled over so I followed. This car came driving by and I thought there must have been an accident and the police were directing traffic southerly in the northbound lane. I so expected to encounter state police and see an accident scene. Next thing I know all the traffic continued on and back to normal.No accident as I thought. Heard next day that they stopped elderly man travelling the wrong way and determined where he got on I-95 he traveled over 15 miles. Luckily he caused no accidents.
WOW! That’s scary, luckily everyone (including yourself) pulled over and no one was hurt! 15 miles?! Pretty sure I remember that one!
He drove two miles and avoided crashes with several otehr vehicles… ? Did he do this on purpose???
I understand perfectly how this happened-I was deathly ill 9 yrs. ago with liver failure,and stopped driving.After a liver transplant,I was in a coma for 6 wks. due to a brain infection. I finally got my license back in Dec. ’08,and love driving againn…but I WILL NOT drive at night,b/c my vision is bad in the dark-can’t see the lines on the road etc. This man was driving @ night,and probably turned the wrong way onto the interstate. Condolences to his family and friends
Mary is a wonderful person, and I am just thankful that she’s not injured even more than she is.