A Brunswick man was arrested Friday after driving the wrong way on Interstate 295 between Bowdoinham and Topsham, according to the Maine State Police.

David Stafford, 40, was charged with operating under the influence of alcohol, driving to endanger and failure to stop for law enforcement, Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss said in a statement Saturday.

Shortly before 10 a.m. Friday, 911 calls to the Sagadahoc County Communications Center and the Augusta Regional Communications Center reported a motorist driving the wrong way in the northbound lane on I-295. Callers reported that the vehicle got onto the off ramp at mile marker 37 in Bowdoinham.

Trooper Ian Dunn saw the vehicle driving near mile marker 34 northbound at about 78 mph in the opposite direction as traffic, Moss said. Dunn conducted a U-turn and caught up to the driver at mile 33, where he conducted a “precision immobilization technique” – striking the rear of Stafford’s vehicle and pushing it into a guardrail to stop it.

Stafford was taken into custody and transported to Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset.

There were no injuries reported.

On Monday, another wrong-way driving incident on I-295 ended in a fatal crash.

Two people died after a woman got onto I-295 in Falmouth in the wrong direction and crashed head-on into another vehicle. The crash killed the woman, Nancy Ezhaya, 72, of Yarmouth, and the driver of the other vehicle, Allen Apblett of Oklahoma. It also injured Apblett’s wife, Natalie Menzies, 60. On Tuesday she was listed in critical but stable condition, Moss said.

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