An unusual amount of rain dumped on eastern Maine last week, resulting in accidents and flash flooding around the State. This actually was a wooden bridge that had just been crossed by a pickup and was followed by the Focus, thinking that the bridge was just slightly under the top of the water, when in fact it had collapsed. It doesn't look like too much water in the pics, but the car was actually submerged enough for water to be flowing over the seats when we got there.

Turned out to be a rental car - OOPS. Good thing for insurance, huh?

(NOTE: all pictures and content Copyright 1994 - 2006 Totman Enterprises. Absolutely no copying or use without express WRITTEN consent of Totman Enterprises.)

This guy was driving down the road, coming around a sharp bend on a "foggy" night (he thinks it was foggy anyway) at a high rate of speed and failed to negotiate a 90-degree corner completely and went straight. Went straight over the guy's lawn (airborne as he came off the road), accelerated as he landed, tore up the guy's lawn, took out an 8" apple tree, sent the tree flying over 100 feet, then jumped the septic system, went through the woods between two trees just barely wide enough to fit the vehicle, crushing in both sides of the vehicle, causing the car to start to spin as he flew over a 4-foot wall, while taking out several good-sized trees as he continued through the woods and landed about 20 feet from the wall.

He climbed out of the vehicle, injured by obviously still able to walk, tried to find his way out, saw a light and climbed through the underbrush (probably injuring himself more) and walked back to the house he started from.

He gives me a call to go recover the vehicle, not telling me where it is or how bad of shape the vehicle is in. We get there and talk to the landowner (where the apple tree was), who gave his permission to enter his land to get the vehicle. At this point, however, it became clear that where the vehicle landed was NOT on his land. The police informed us we could not attempt to recover the vehicle without the other landowner's permission. After doing some searching for an owner, we found a telephone number for his uncle, who lived out of state, who informed us that the landowner was out of the COUNTRY, at which point we had to wait to hear from him.

About a week later, we get a telephone call from the landowner, who has returned from Europe. I had to go discuss with him how we were going to recover the vehicle with the least damage to his property. The landowner very kindly agreed to let us cut and remove a few trees for easier access. We had to winch it through a wild rose garden (and YES, THEY DO HAVE THORNS!)

All in all, this was my longest recovery to date, in that it took 2 weeks from start to finish.

(NOTE: all pictures and content Copyright 1994 - 2006 Totman Enterprises. Absolutely no copying or use without express WRITTEN consent of Totman Enterprises.)

One Saturday morning we got a State Police call to a tractor-trailer (semi)/automobile collision, which is never a good call.

We came up to the scene, which is at the entrance to a local general store on a major east-west route, and the car is sitting in the center of the road, completely destroyed and cut up by the "jaws of life", looking like a fatality.

We stopped to speak to the officer in charge, who informed us the driver was taken to the hospital, but did not mention his condition. We proceeded to load it onto the truck and strap all the scrap debris onto what was left of the car.

Once the vehicle was loaded, I inquired as to the name of the driver as we had picked up his personal belongings, including skis, cds, etc. The officer told me the man's name and it dawned on me that he was my son's coach. His brother is a firefighter/EMT who helped extricate him from the car. As it turns out, he was only slightly injured and very shook up. Apparently, it took a great deal of effort by the local rescue squads to release him from the twisted lump of metal that used to be his car.

When he was released from the car, he wanted to walk to the ambulance, but the rescue workers refused to allow that, to prevent possible further injury.

Within 2 hours of us returning from the accident scene, he was back at our lot examining his vehicle. A few days later he brought several of his students to view the wreck as an example of inattention on the road, as he was looking to the right at some cedar logs while turning to the left to get a cup of coffee before his last skiing trip to Sugarloaf of the year - straight into the path of an 18-wheeler moving van. The tractor-trailer was going about 50-55 mph, which is the speed limit in that area.