A Sorrento man died last week while doing logging work by himself in Ellsworth, according to police.
Marc Calcia, 53, was cutting logs for a property owner on Scott’s Neck, a peninsula that juts into Green Lake, when the accident occurred, Ellsworth police Chief Glenn Moshier said Monday.
“Everything indicates it was a logging accident,” Moshier said. “A tree fell on him.”
Moshier said Calcia’s body has been transferred to the Maine medical examiner’s office in Augusta for an autopsy.
Police went looking for Calcia on Friday after his wife contacted the sheriff’s office to report that Calcia had not returned home the previous day, according to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.
After learning that Calcia had been cutting trees in Ellsworth, sheriff’s deputies and an Ellsworth police officer went to the property to look for him. They found him dead a “considerable distance” into the woods, the sheriff’s office said.
Calcia was a trash hauler who also delivered newspapers for the Bangor Daily News. His name appeared in media reports earlier this year when he was banned by the state from owning any livestock after state animal welfare inspectors found animals living in filthy conditions on his farm.
Despite his occasional legal troubles, his wife, Pam Calcia, said Monday that her husband was a hard worker and was well liked by his family and friends. He leaves behind two young children aged 10 and 11 years old, four grown children, and some grandchildren, she said.
“He was larger than life. He was a wonderful storyteller,” she said. “He had a sense of humor that could make anyone laugh.”
Pam Calcia said her husband had done logging work for many years and did many odd jobs to help provide for his family. He got up early six days a week to deliver newspapers and put in long hours with his other jobs. Sometimes he pulled over by the side of the road to take a short nap between work appointments or errands, she said.
If he got a call from someone asking him for help with a flat tire or some other pressing matter, even in the middle of the night, he would go lend a hand, she said.
“He worked tirelessly,” Pam Calcia said. “He’d be the first one to go help.”
Pam Calcia said she last talked to her husband Thursday afternoon. She expected him home that night, but when he did not answer his phone or respond to her texts she began to worry. She contacted police, expecting they would find him sleeping in his truck somewhere by the side of the road.
“Little did I know,” she said. “His kind heart will be missed beyond words.”
