WATERVILLE — Seven people were injured Friday when a car crashed into a horse-drawn hayride on Industrial Street.

One of the hayride passengers was pinned under the car, but officials could not release additional information about that victim at the scene.

The crash occurred at 2:35 p.m., according to Waterville police Sgt. Alden Weigelt. Dispatchers called for all available units to be sent to the scene, near the Elks Lodge building at the end of the dead-end street.

Fifteen people were on the hayride cart when the car hit it, Weigelt said. Six of the seven injured people were treated at area hospitals and were released, he said, but one was taken by a LifeFlight helicopter to a Portland hospital. He said did not have details of the severity of the person’s injury and could not release the names of the people who were injured.

Cathy Simmons of Sidney said she was driving the hayride when the crash happened. She had been driving passengers most of the morning, as part of the Waterville Elks Lodge annual Central Maine Family Dinner event. The free dinner usually draws hundreds of people.

Simmons said she was carry ing volunteers on the last ride of the day when the cart was struck. She didn’t see or hear anything before the crash. She felt her chair break and fell on her back, she said. The cart was mangled and broken parts were lying on the road.

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The car, a silver Chrysler sedan with Massachusetts license plates, appeared to have struck the cart at the rear of the left side. Police did not release information on the driver.

Simmons said a few other people might have been taken to the hospital with minor injuries. People at the scene needed to get a jack to lift the car up enough to release the woman who was trapped under it, she said.

Industrial Street was clogged with Waterville police and fire emergency vehicles. The Maine State Police and the Office of the State Fire Marshal will assist Waterville detectives investigating the crash, Ryder said.

Simmons, who works for S&S Carriage Rides, said she’s never been hit by a car before, but the possibility of a crash is always in the back of her mind.

“I’m always worried about it. People fly by us like we weren’t there,” she said.

Waterville police, with the assistance of the Maine State Police and Fairfield police, were reconstructing the crash Friday, and the department expects to release more information Saturday, Weigelt said.

Along with the Waterville police and fire departments, Delta Ambulance, the state police, and an ambulance from Clinton Fire Department responded to a report of the crash. The Office of the State Fire Marshal, which investigates amusement ride accidents, also responded, Weigelt said.

Friday’s crash was the second serious incident in 14 months involving a hayride in Maine. In July, the Androscoggin County grand jury issued manslaughter and other charges against Harvest Hill Farms in Mechanic Falls, where a hayride crashed in October 2014, killing a 17-year-old Oakland girl and injuring 22 other passengers. Investigators found that the brakes of the Jeep pulling the hayride failed, causing the vehicle and trailer to roll down a hill and strike a tree, throwing passengers from the trailer.

 


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