Sheriff: Bridge tragedy could have been avoided

By Robert Lowell

[email protected]

The York County sheriff says he warned state transportation officials about the safety of a Route 202 bridge where a 12-year-old boy was critically injured Tuesday.

Sheriff Maurice Ouellette said the Department of Transportation refused to put up a fence, as he had requested, to prevent children from jumping off the bridge near a popular swimming hole on the Saco River because department officials said a fence would interfere with the bucket truck used for inspections.

“Now a tragedy has happened,” said Ouellette. “I’m not happy.”

Mark Latti, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Transportation, said Wednesday there would be several issues with installing a fence on the bridge including inspections, winter maintenance and snow removal, potential of increased winter accidents, costs and questions about how effective it would be in preventing from the bridge.

Latti said the state only has one such fence and that’s on a bridge in Augusta.

If the state installed a fence on the Buxton bridge, Latti said, it could potentially have to install fences on “dozens of bridges” throughout the state.

“The costs would run into millions of dollars,” said Latti, who added the state doesn’t have money to even replace some bridges.

In past talks with the state, Hollis and Buxton selectmen were successful in getting the speed on the bridge reduced from 50 to 35 mph. This week’s accident was to be discussed by Hollis selectmen at their meeting Wednesday.

Buxton Selectman Bob Libby said Wednesday safety on the narrow bridge has repeatedly been a topic.

“It has been a potential problem for quite a period of time,” he said.

The boy, whom Ouellette identified as Jake Vincent of Portland, was in critical condition at Maine Medical Center Wednesday, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

The accident occurred Tuesday afternoon as Vincent was getting a running start for a jump off the bridge into the Saco River, according to Ouellette. He waited for an eastbound tractor-trailer truck to pass before running, but failed to see the pickup truck coming in the opposite direction, Ouellette said.

Ouellette said he did not expect the driver of the pickup truck, Gregory Harriman, 26, of Waterboro, to face charges in the accident.

“He didn’t see the boy,” he said.

Ouellette said the boy’s father, Chris Vincent, was down river on a trestle at the time of the accident.

A swimming hole on the Buxton shore of the river near the bridge is an attraction for area youth, who jump into the river from a long-abandoned stone bridge abutment just downstream from the present bridge.

Some swimmers park on the Hollis side of the river in a lot near the Salmon Falls Library and walk across the bridge to the swimming hole. Posted signs prohibit jumping or swimming from the narrow, two-lane bridge, which doesn’t have a sidewalk.

“It’s dangerous,” Ouellette said about pedestrians crossing the bridge.

The sheriff’s department, reconstructing the accident, closed the bridge to all traffic and pedestrians.

Westbound rush hour traffic on Route 202 was diverted at the intersection of Route 112 at Tory Hill in Buxton.

A gathering of some 20 teens wearing bathing suits milled around Tuesday at the swimming hole on the Buxton side of the river. Cooling off on a hot, muggy July afternoon, some were plunging into the river while others swung on a Tarzan-type rope out over the water below.

Brad Foster, who was at the swimming hole after just arriving back in Maine from New Mexico, didn’t see the accident but heard it from a short distance away.

“We just got here when it happened,” Foster said, “We heard a loud smack.”

Foster said the rescue unit and police “showed up real quick,” within five minutes.

“I’m saying prayers for him,” Foster said.

Route 202 bridge – Police closed this bridge over the Saco River Tuesday following an accident hospitalizing a 12-year-old boy. The sign says no jumping or swimming from the bridge.