BANGOR, Maine — One driver involved in a nearly head-on collision Monday afternoon on U.S. Route 1 in Searsport died early Tuesday morning at a Bangor hospital.
Donald McKillop Jr., 66, of Penobscot had been taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center by LifeFlight of Maine helicopter after the crash. He died there shortly after midnight Tuesday, according to Searsport Police Chief Dick LaHaye, who said that McKillop apparently had suffered a heart attack while driving.
The Penobscot man was behind the wheel of a Jeep Wrangler and veered around a car that had stopped to turn into the Hobby Horse Flea Market, the chief reported on Monday. McKillop’s vehicle crossed over centerline, colliding with a Honda CRV driven by a Searsport woman who had two young children in the back of her vehicle.
That driver, Jamie Fraser, 36, was taken to Waldo County General Hospital for treatment of lacerations, LaHaye said Monday. The 6- and 7-year-old children in in her vehicle were checked out by medical personnel after the crash and released into the care of relatives.
Both vehicles were totaled and the accident slowed traffic on the busy coastal road for three hours until police decided to just shut down the road and reroute traffic entirely.