(pull quote) – “It sounded like something from outer space hitting the earth. It was huge.” – a neighbor, Lori Arsenault.
One trucker is dead and another in critical condition Wednesday following an accident Monday at an intersection where Gorham officials have long wanted a red light.
Gorham police said Bruce W. Blow, 56, of Old Orchard Beach, died after a commercial truck he was driving collided with another truck at 7:15 a.m., at the intersection of Main Street (Route 25) and Libby Avenue. Blow, who was pronounced dead at Maine Medical Center in Portland, died on his birthday.
Blow, driving a Maietta Construction dump truck, collided with an R.W. Herrick trash hauler driven by Richard A. Vittum, 41, of South Hiram. Vittum was also transported to Maine Medical Center, where a hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday he was in critical condition.
Mike Maietta Jr., co-owner of Maietta Construction Inc., Scarborough, said Wednesday everyone in the company is distraught.
“We’re shutting down the whole company Friday for his funeral,” Maietta said. It will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Hope Memorial Chapel, 480 Elm St., Biddeford.
Maietta said Blow, who had worked a year for the company, was very dependable and one of the company’s happiest drivers.
“He was a great guy,” Maietta said. “We’re all pretty sad here.”
Blow’s obituary wasn’t available by American Journal deadline. Maietta said Blow is survived by his wife, Brenda, two grown children and five grandchildren.
Gorham has been concerned about traffic at that intersection in recent years, but it is the Maine Department of Transportation that decides where red lights are installed.
Main Street and Libby Avenue are heavily traveled and left turns at the intersection can be difficult. Town Councilor Brenda Caldwell, who was in a car accident there a few years ago, said Wednesday some drivers at the intersection misjudge oncoming traffic.
“That’s a high accident area,” said Gorham Police Chief Ron Shepard.
Town Manager David Cole said in an e-mail Tuesday that the town had asked the Maine Department of Transportation for a study to determine whether the intersection meets the criteria for a traffic light.
“Currently, we have not received a response to this request,” Cole said.
Steve Landry, state traffic engineer, said Tuesday the department received the town’s request Dec. 6. Landry said traffic counts determine where traffic lights are located and count programs run from April through October.
“We’ll be doing it in the spring,” Landry said. “We’re going to get it on schedule as soon as we can.”
If a traffic signal is warranted at that intersection, Landry said, it wouldn’t be funded until October 2009 “at the earliest.”
Town Council Chairman Burleigh Loveitt said the state analysis in the past had determined a traffic light was not warranted. Loveitt said he believed this week’s tragedy would “weigh heavily” in a state reassessment for a traffic light at the intersection.
Shepard said Blow was ejected from the dump truck and that Vittum sustained head injuries. First at the scene, Bill York, owner of Gorham Taxi & Livery Inc., had left his home on Libby Avenue to pick up a fare.
As he arrived at the intersection, York saw Blow. “He was laying in the snow bank,” York said. “He was face down in the snow.”
York called Cumberland County dispatch on a cell phone to report the accident and pulled his taxi into the eastbound traffic lane on Main Street to block traffic. He said there were no other cars at the scene when he arrived.
York said a woman, who works for Windham Rescue, stopped to help. They rolled Blow onto his side and York steadied the man’s head so he could breathe better until an ambulance arrived. York said the man was laboring to breathe.
“Time acted like it just stopped,” York said.
When Officer David Kearns of the Gorham Police Department arrived, he radioed for another rescue unit, York said.
Gorham Deputy Fire Chief Ken Fickett said Monday Vittum was trapped in the vehicle and had to be removed from the wreckage by rescue workers. “Time was of the essence,” Fickett said.
Fickett said neither driver was wearing a seat belt.
Shepard said the Maietta truck was exiting Libby Avenue and the Herrick truck was eastbound on Main Street when the collision occurred. York described the weather at that time as a “little bit” foggy with a mist requiring windshield wipers.
A police report said it appears that Blow failed to yield, causing the Herrick truck to sideswipe the dump truck.
The Maietta truck was empty. An unofficial source at the scene said the Maietta driver had unloaded salt at the Maine Department of Transportation salt shed off Libby Avenue.
There apparently were no witnesses to the accident. A neighbor, Lori Arsenault, who lives nearby, heard the crash.
“It sounded like something from outer space hitting the earth. It was huge,” she said.
Two wreckers, one from Maietta and another from Phillips and Sons Body Shop of Gorham, both equipped with 50-ton winches, were required to pull the Herrick truck through the snow and onto the road. Carl Phillips said Tuesday the Herrick truck was about 20 feet off the road and the brakes were locked up.
Phillips said the truck frames were bent and mounts holding motors, transmissions and cabs in place were sheared on both trucks.
“It looked like a plane crash site,” Phillips said, describing scattered debris.
The Maietta dump truck had traveled about 50 feet along Main Street after the collision. “The front end is ripped right out of it,” Fickett said.
After being checked at the scene, both trucks were hauled to Gorham Public Works, where police examined them again. The trucks were later impounded at Phillips’ shop on Gray Road.
The accident remains under investigation by Gorham Officer Brent Frank, who is reconstructing the accident along with Sgt. David Hall of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, and state police.
Lt. Tom Kelly, head of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division of the Maine Public Safety Department, said Tuesday Trooper Christopher Cyr inspected the two trucks. “There were no violations on either truck that contributed to the accident,” Kelly said.
The accident closed both lanes of Main Street from Libby Avenue to Mosher’s Corner, the intersection of Main Street and Mosher Road (Route 237) for much of the day.
There are no charges pending and alcohol is not believed to be a factor, a police report said. The accident also snapped a utility pole and cut electrical power to more than 2,000 people.
A wrecker hoists) 
(GOR ax 2) -The driver of this truck, Richard A. Vittum, 41, South Hiram, remains in critical condition Tuesday after a collision with a dump truck Monday in Gorham.
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