Crews cleaned up a load of spilled glass Monday morning after a tractor-trailer rolled over at the Maine Turnpike’s northbound service plaza in Kennebunk.

The driver, 67-year-old Paul Comeau of Leeds, apparently fell asleep while entering the plaza about 7:30 a.m., police said. The truck slid about 100 feet in the parking lot, hit a sign, came within inches of striking a camper and rolled onto its side.

The crash took out one of the light poles on an island separating the parking lot from the access road leading to the gasoline station. The crash ripped a hole in the truck’s trailer, spilling thick chunks of recyclable grayish glass onto the pavement.

The truck is owned by Chapman Trucking of Auburn.

The camper was occupied by Bonnie and Kerry Bowden of Belmont. Neither was injured. Their Jeep being towed by the camper sustained minor damage, but the couple were able to drive away.

Comeau needed help getting out of his rig. He was freed by the Kennebunk Fire Department, which responded to the crash, and taken to Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford with injuries that were not life-threatening.

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Maine State Police said Comeau will likely face charges once the investigation is finished.

Chapman Trucking Inc. has 75 rigs and 63 drivers, according to the federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. In the past two years, company trucks have been involved in one crash that resulted in an injury and four crashes with no injuries but that led to the truck being towed, the agency said.

The company had 41 inspections in the past two years, and on three occasions a truck was taken out of service. That 7 percent rate compares to the national average of 21 percent. In the 66 inspections of its drivers, none was taken out of service, the agency said.

The administration gave the company a satisfactory safety rating.

Comeau was at the wheel in another crash on Aug. 1, 2014, when he was driving a rig north on Interstate 95 in Saco. Traffic slowed and Comeau’s truck crashed into the back of a 2004 Volvo. A 58-year-old man in the Volvo complained of dizziness but the other three people in the car had no injuries. The car had to be towed away.

The police report said Comeau was following too closely for the road conditions.

The only infraction on his driving record for the past 12 years was in 2006, when he was ticketed for going 9 mph over the speed limit and not wearing his seat belt.

 


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