SULLIVAN, Maine — An incident in which a local woman allegedly attempted to drive through the guardrail on the Hancock-Sullivan Bridge and into the Taunton River is still under investigation, police said Tuesday.
Alcohol is believed to be a factor in the incident, which occurred Sept. 19, according to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department. The Bangor Daily News is not naming the woman because she has not yet been charged.
The 34-year-old woman was driving a 2001 Ford Explorer east across the bridge about 20 minutes before midnight on Wednesday, Sept. 19, when she allegedly swerved right into the guardrail in an attempt to drive the vehicle into the tidal Taunton River below, according to a sheriff’s department summary of the incident.
The SUV did not go through the guardrail, however, and continued eastbound on Route 1. At the end of the bridge it went off the road and across a driveway and lawn of someone’s house, coming to rest on the lawn. The passenger side of the Ford sustained “considerable damage” in the incident, according to Deputy Chris Sargent.
Sargent wrote in the summary that the driver fled on foot but was apprehended a short time later and taken to Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth for a psychological evaluation.
Charges are pending and could be forwarded to the district attorney’s office within the week, Chief Deputy Richard Bishop said Tuesday.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
WWow……
Us Route 1 is a North/South highway. If she were going East then she would have been going across the road. Come on.
While rt 1 is a north/south road the actual direction you are traveling in that section of road is east/west
People never fail to amaze me.
I know a person who thought that if you were going south you were going downhill.
What man who got drunk and smashed his cars in to a bridge, a front yard, and then fled the scene of an accident on foot would be taken to a hospital for a “psychological evaluation”? Drunk driving men are arrested, taken to jail, and charged no matter what personal problems they may be going through. I recall reading about incidents where female drunk drivers hit and killed young men and the DA refused to even file charges. The same conduct for which men are imprisoned for years, women are very often not even charged. I hope Deputy Chris Sargent will treat his fellow men the same way he treated this dangerous woman, and that Bangor Daily news withholds the names of accused men just as it did for this accused woman.
What amazes me is government educated people. What a shame.