A driver crashed into Red’s Eats in Wiscasset Sunday morning, heavily damaging the restaurant’s patio. Courtesy of Debbie Gagnon

A Westbrook man crashed a truck into Red’s Eats in Wiscasset Sunday morning, damaging the patio.

Police said Charles Moss, 37, was driving a Freightliner truck south on Route 1 at about 5:50 a.m. when he lost control of the vehicle, which veered across the northbound lane and crashed into a granite post and the restaurant’s patio. No one was hurt.

The aftermath of a crash at Red’s Eats. Courtesy of Debbie Gagnon

The truck is registered to UPS. Wiscasset police Chief Larry Hesseltine said Moss told officers he hydroplaned, but the chief said there was no evidence of that.

“Speed and fatigue are most likely factors in the crash,” Hesseltine said, adding no charges are expected to be filed.

The crash ruptured the vehicle’s oil pan; Wiscasset firefighters, public works employees and workers from the town’s NAPA store cleaned up the spill.

Red’s Eats owner Debbie Gagnon said the patio, which seats about 40 people, was “totaled.”

“The impact shifted the entire deck, broke light posts, tables, planters and lumber,” Gagnon said. “The cement is cracked and damaged, the granite bollard was thrown through the bottom of the deck and ripped right off the sidewalk.”

She moved tables to the sidewalk and is directing people to sit at picnic tables by the Sheepscot River while the patio is repaired. She could not say how much in damage the crash caused.

“I’m so thankful that no one was hurt,” she said.


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