DEXTER, Maine — A Dexter man said he felt like an unwilling participant in a demolition derby when he got caught up in the middle of a massive pileup on Interstate 95 in Carmel last week that left him with a wrecked vehicle.
Shane Overlock said Wednesday that he was “devastated” because he was “so helpless watching car after car running into the pile of vehicles. I was pinned inside. When the bus hit, it was a heartbreaking sight.”
He was on his way to his job at a Bangor auto body shop when the crash involving at least 75 vehicles occurred.
“His car was totaled by a tractor-trailer. It jackknifed, and it crushed him between the tractor-trailer and the [guard] railing,” Dale Jackson of Pittsfield said Wednesday.
Overlock is married to Jackson’s cousin Ashley Smith Overlock, who works full time at Dexter Variety. The newly married couple is raising three young children.
When Jackson heard that Overlock’s insurance company valued the couple’s destroyed 2000 Chevy Cavalier at between $800-$1,500, he started a gofundme account to raise money to get the family of five a reliable used vehicle.
“You can’t buy a car for that amount,” he said of the insurance estimate.
Considering that his small sedan was hit by several other vehicles unable to stop on the icy roadway and a metal bar shattered the driver’s side window and struck him in the head, Overlock feels he was extremely lucky.
Overlock walked away from the crash scene, but “he ended up with a concussion,” Jackson said.
To get back and forth to work, the Overlocks have been borrowing vehicles from relatives, but they are only available on a limited basis.
Ashley Overlock said she cried when her cousin told her about the fundraising effort. When she heard strangers had contributed, it was beyond heartwarming, she said.
“You can’t explain in words how that makes you feel,” she said. “It’s surreal.”
Jackson, who said he wished he could help all the people involved in the highway pileup, put a one-week limit on the gofundme account to raise the money as quickly as possible. He said he hoped people would “pay it forward” to help out a young hard-working couple. A total of $510 had been raised by 6 p.m. Wednesday.
“All we’re trying to do is help them out to get them back on their feet,” said Jackson, who donated $50.