Two people who were driving in Madison on Thursday morning died when their vehicle collided with a dump truck while they were trying to make a left turn, police said.
Joyce Gipson, 85, of Madison was driving the 2009 Pontiac Torrent that was making the left turn, and her husband, 80-year-old Keith Blackwell, was a passenger in the car, according to Chief Deputy Michael Mitchell of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office.
Both of them died after the car was making the left turn from Preble Avenue onto Ward Hill Road around 9 a.m. and collided with a dump truck that was heading south on Ward Hill Road, according to Mitchell. Neither person was wearing a seat belt.
The driver of the dump truck, 50-year-old David Obert of Norridgewock, was taken to Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan with injuries that were not considered to be life-threatening. Obert also wasn’t wearing a seat belt, according to Mitchell.
An initial police investigation suggested that Gipson was not paying attention at the time of the crash, Mitchell said, but police are continuing to reconstruct the accident and investigate what caused it.