Belfast Public Works Department employee Stephen Mathieson, 69, died Thursday morning after slipping and hitting his head while loading wooden docks into a dump truck. Credit: Abigail Curtis / BDN

BELFAST, Maine — A Belfast public works employee died Thursday morning after slipping and hitting his head while loading some maritime docks into a truck parked near the waterfront.  

Stephen Mathieson, 69, of Montville had been in the back of a dump truck when it happened, according to Deputy Chief Dean Jackson of the Belfast Police Department. 

“He fell out of the back of the dump truck and struck his head on the ground,” Jackson said. 

Mathieson was taken to Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast, where he was pronounced dead. The accident happened at 10:50 a.m., Jackson said, in a dirt parking lot not far from Front Street Shipyard.