MEXICO — A Carthage man was injured Wednesday morning on Route 2 trying to avoid a head-on collision that forced his pickup into a utility pole, Mexico police said.

James Marion, 37, complained of back pain and was taken by Med-Care Ambulance to Rumford Hospital as a precaution, Mexico officer William Cook said at the scene.

Cook said Marion was driving west in a 2001 Ford F-150 pickup at about 10:40 a.m. when Jennifer Hamdi, 44, of Andover turned left into his lane while trying to enter an exit lane from Region 9 School of Applied Technology.

Marion tried to avoid a head-on collision and his truck glanced off Hamdi’s Kia, left the road and hit a utility pole, snapping it in half so it leaned on the driver’s side of the truck, Cook said.

A young boy and two teenage girls, who Cook declined to identify, were with Hamdi. Neither Hamdi nor her passengers were injured.

Cook said there would be no charges.

Randy Graham, an employee at Puiia’s Lumber Co. and Hardware Store, said he was the first one to reach Marion.

“Black smoke was coming out of the truck and I thought it was on fire and I helped him out,” Graham said. He said he later realized the smoke was from the air-bag deployment.

Cook said everyone involved was lucky, because the injuries could have been a lot worse had Marion not taken evasive action. Both vehicles were demolished and hauled away by Roland’s Automotive of Mexico.

Electricity was shut off in Dixfield and Mexico while a Central Maine Power crew removed power lines from the pole to install another pole, Cook said.

Mexico firefighters handled traffic and covered vehicle fluids on the straightaway between Region 9 and Puiia’s with an absorbent material. Mexico police Chief James Theriault and Dixfield police Lt. Jeff Howe assisted.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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