BOWDOINHAM — Three people were injured and taken to the hospital after a sedan and an old school bus that had been converted into an ice cream truck collided on northbound Interstate 295 on Monday night.

Several witnesses who saw the crash and helped the occupants of the vehicles said the car, a Nissan, was being driven erratically just before the collision that occurred at mile marker 39 near the Bowdoinham exit just before 6:15 p.m. The vehicles came to rest off of the highway with the bus rolled onto the driver’s side.

The driver of the sedan was able to get out of the car on her own, but state troopers and first responders had to extricate two people from the ice cream truck.

“One was entrapped. We were able to get them out,” Sgt. Jason Madore said. “All three have been transported to the hospital with what we believe right now to be minor injuries, but they’re being transported for precautionary purposes.

“Right now, we do believe alcohol was a factor.”

The accident caused significant delays on the highway as police closed one lane while emergency crews were working at the scene. Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said a team of state troopers would spend the evening at the site in an attempt to reconstruct the accident.

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Police hadn’t yet released names of those involved.

Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, who was directing traffic around the crash site, said several ambulances responded to the crash site and transported the victims.

Madore said both the bus, which he said was registered in Mt. Vernon, and car were traveling north in the travel lane. The car attempted to pass the bus and hit the rear of the bus, causing the bus to veer off the right side of the road into the soft shoulder where it overturned.

“It looks like the driver of the car, at that point after the collision had happened, overcorrected, causing that vehicle to skid out of control and come to final rest on the right-hand side of the 295 system,” he said.

Press Herald Staff Writer Dennis Hoey reported on this story from South Portland. 


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