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Winterport man seriously injured in accident

Posted Dec. 20, 2009, at 8:09 p.m.

HAMPDEN, Maine — A Winterport man was seriously injured Saturday evening in a two-vehicle crash on Kennebec Road in Hampden, but his 4-year-old passenger was unhurt.

According to Sgt. Scott Webber of the Hampden Police Department, 23-year-old Zachary Barnett had parked his disabled GMC pickup truck on the shoulder of the road a short distance from the intersection of Kennebec Road and Back Winterport Road at about 5:30 p.m. He had placed a call to a family member for assistance and was standing outside the vehicle in the dark waiting for help. Inside the cab of the truck was the 4-year-old son of Barnett’s girlfriend.

Approaching from the rear in a Chevrolet sedan at the legal speed of about 45 mph, 32-year-old Hubert O’Leary, of Hampden, did not see the truck and hit it at full speed, Webber said. Barnett was hit by both vehicles and was badly injured, he said.

When O’Leary, who had been wearing a seat belt and who was unhurt, got out of his own vehicle, he saw the little boy in the pickup’s cab “crying and beating on the window to get out,” Webber said. O’Leary removed the child and was holding him when rescue crews arrived.

The 4-year-old was unhurt.

“He didn’t have a bruise or a scratch on him,” Webber said.

Webber said there was a car seat in the cab of the truck and speculated that the child must have been restrained at the time of the crash and then unbuckled himself.

Multiple callers reported the accident, and fire, ambulance and police crews from Hampden responded. Barnett was conscious and alert when he was taken by ambulance to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, according to Webber.

A nursing supervisor at the hospital said Sunday afternoon that Barnett was listed in serious condition.