Maine: State police trooper hit in July crash in Richmond makes full recovery
The truck slammed into the back of Stevens’ cruiser, sending the trooper flying back behind the front passenger’s seat. When Stevens came to, he was able to crawl his way out of the mangled SUV before help arrived, but he would spend roughly three months in often painful recovery before returning to work in October.
“I had a lot of something watching out for me,” Stevens said. “God was with me. Everything fell into place to keep me alive.”
The July 30 crash offered another stark reminder of the importance of Maine’s Move Over law, which requires drivers to slow down and, if possible, move over to give police, firefighters and other emergency responders a wide berth when they are stopped on the side of the road.
“I always want the motorists to remember that is someone’s brother, or father, or wife or mother, out on the road,” Stevens said.
Despite suffering a concussion, Stevens easily recalls the details of the crash, beginning with the setting. It was a little before 10 a.m. on a clear, bright day.
Stevens, 44, who has worked in law enforcement for 22 years, the last 17 with the state police, pulled his cruiser in behind a tractor-trailer that had broken down in the northbound lane of Interstate 295 near mile 46. The truck driver had just gotten his rig running and merged back into traffic as Stevens completed a brief report on the stop inside his cruiser. His cruiser was parked in the breakdown lane on the right side of the road with its emergency lights flashing. He said there were no curves or hills in the area to obscure the view of approaching drivers.
Stevens finished his report just in time to look up and see in his mirror that an approaching tractor-trailer was veering right toward his cruiser. The driver of that truck, 56-year-old Gusan Yedic, of Yorktown Heights, New York, told crash investigators he had blown a tire, but Stevens said that doesn’t square with other details of the investigation. Stevens probably will never know what happened.
“There’s no rhyme or reason why he would have hit me,” he said.
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