All Frank Gatto remembers seeing – just before impact – is a dark mass in front of his vehicle, straddling the Maine Turnpike’s northbound lanes near the Gray exit.

He didn’t have time to hit the brakes.

Taylor Norcross

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“It was pitch black,” said Gatto, who was traveling with his fiancee, Taylor Norcross, about 8 p.m. Wednesday. They were going from work at Bay City Motors in Portland to their home in Auburn.

“A split second before I hit it, I realized it was a moose. All I could see was its belly and legs,” said Gatto, 39, the owner of the used car dealership.

He said he reached to turn on the dome light to see how Norcross was doing, and instead his arm reached into the open air.

The moose had ripped off the roof of the car, a low-riding, road-hugging Infiniti sedan.

“We went right underneath that moose, took out its legs,” Gatto said.

Gatto said he came out of the crash unscathed, and hoped that Taylor, 27, had avoided injury, too.

“It was so dark, I couldn’t see her, so I called out, ‘Taylor, Taylor, are you OK?’ ”

No answer.

Gatto scrambled to find his phone and ran over to the passenger side so he could get a look at her.

“Her eyes were rolling back in her head and she was making gurgling sounds,” Gatto said. He called 911, and while he was waiting her breathing seemed to worsen. “That was the longest 10 minutes of my life. It felt like three hours,” Gatto said.

Paramedics arrived and transported Norcross to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where she was put into a medically induced coma. Gatto said she suffered severe brain injuries from the crash, and was listed in critical condition Thursday and Friday, but there are some encouraging signs.

“The doctors are positive and optimistic. She’s young, strong and healthy,” Gatto said. He said she doesn’t appear to have other injuries related to the crash, such as broken bones or damage to internal organs.

Gatto said he was told by doctors that they may try slowly bringing her out of the coma next week, if the swelling in her brain reduces enough.

Gatto said he doesn’t understand how he emerged from the crash with a few scratches, while she nearly died.

“I was sitting 6 inches away from her,” Gatto said. “I wonder why. I was driving and I can’t help but feel responsible, even though there was nothing I could do.”

Gatto said he doesn’t know if the moose directly hit his fiancee. He said he didn’t see any signs of it, but it’s possible. The moose did not survive the crash.

Moose-vehicle collisions can be deadly and are not infrequent in Maine – there were 322 of them in 2014 and 212 through Sept. 15 of this year. That’s down from about 650 per year a decade ago. Maine Department of Transportation officials have said a number of steps have improved safety and reduced the number of moose-vehicle collisions, including more “moose-crossing” signs, reflectors along the roadside to help drivers see moose and reducing the moose density in Aroostook County, where the collisions occur most frequently. Gatto said he’s always been aware of moose on the roadways, and he looks for them when driving home on Interstate 95 at night. But he said he didn’t see the one on Wednesday.

Gatto said his fiancee is fun-loving, outgoing and enjoys snowboarding, surfing, reading and writing. He said he hopes and prays she will recover soon.

“There’s no telling how long this will take,” Gatto said. “It could be that she’s in a coma for weeks. There’s nothing we can do but wait.”

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