CORNISH — Route 25 near Parsonsfield was shut down for about nine hours Saturday night and into Sunday morning after a tractor-trailer truck carrying gasoline jack-knifed on icy roads.

The mishap, in which the driver sustained minor injuries, was one of the last in a long day of slide-offs and crashes due to treacherous ice that formed on roads early Saturday and remained in many locations through most of the day.

In the interior portions of the county, rescue squads and law enforcement officers were busy from Alfred to Sanford to Shapleigh and Parsonsfield, and all the smaller communities in between. York County Sheriff’s deputies responded to approximately 40 crashes, multiple vehicle slide-offs and storm-related hazards on Saturday due to the icy road conditions, said Chief Deputy Bill King. In all, deputies encountered approximately 70 vehicles that were involved in crashes or needed some assistance, he said.

On Saturday morning, sheriff’s deputies shut down a five-mile stretch of Route 11 in Shapleigh, from the intersection of Route 109 to the Shapleigh Corner Store, after about a dozen cars went off the road and became stuck. Maine Department of Transportation sand trucks were summoned to treat the roads to get the vehicles moving, King said.

At about 10 p.m. Saturday, a partially filled fuel tanker truck, owned by H.A. Mapes, Inc. of Springvale, lost control on Route 25 in Cornish, near the Parsonsfield town line, and jack-knifed across the road. The truck was traveling west on Route 25 when the mishap occurred. The precarious position of the truck and the guardrails prevented it from being moved without the assistance of a tow truck, King said.

An estimated 9,500 gallons of unleaded gasoline and 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel had to be unloaded before the truck could be towed from its position. The unloading of the fuel, and subsequent tow, caused the roadway to be shut down until 7 a.m. Sunday. Traffic was detoured through Porter and Hiram.

Cornish and Kezar Falls Fire Departments and Sacopee Rescue Units responded to the scene. The driver, Dianne Luce, 51, of Arundel, was transported to Maine Medical Center in Portland with minor injuries and released.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].