WEST PARIS — A logger from Phillips who was pinned under skidder tracks for nearly two hours Thursday morning remained in a Lewiston hospital Thursday night.
The family of Bill Bailey requested that no information on his condition be released, a nursing supervisor at Central Maine Medical Center said.
According to Eric Poland of the West Paris Fire Department, Bailey was “driving a skidder-type vehicle full of logs out of the woods and had stopped to check a tire when it started to roll and he was pinned under the tracks” of the vehicle.
Bailey told rescuers the tracks weigh about 50,000 pounds.
Poland said rescuers quickly chained the skidder to a tree harvester that was at the site to stabilize the skidder, and chained the harvester to a large oak tree “to keep the skidder from moving any more” on the icy surface.
Then rescuers from Paris and Oxford fire departments activated pneumatic air bags to lift the skidder, as rescuers shoveled ground out from underneath the vehicle to get to Bailey, Poland said.
“It was a tedious process of slowly lifting and shoveling out under the tractor,” he said.
Four paramedics cared for Bailey while a path was cleared, Poland said, and two LifeFlight medics also hiked into the woods about 100 yards from High Street to assist.
Rescuers used chain saws to clear trees that had been felled by the skidder’s slide off the trail and into the woods, Poland said. “We had to clear a path in to get to the patient” before being able to move him, using a Stokes basket, “down off the mountain.”
The rescue call came in around 8:30 a.m. and Bailey was put in a LifeFlight helicopter for transport to CMMC at 10:45 a.m.
Personnel from Buckfield, Norway, Paris, Oxford, Greenwood, Sumner, Woodstock, Poland and Rumford were called in to assist, as was the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office. Just before 9 a.m. Pace Ambulance was also called to respond with blankets, warm fluids and hotpacks, and Hebron Fire Department was called to cover the fire station in West Paris, where LifeFlight was scheduled to land.
According to dispatch reports, LifeFlight landed at the station at 10:30 a.m. and the victim was moved from the woods to a nearby ambulance, which then took him to the waiting helicopter. According to rescuers, he was awake and responsive the entire time.
According to a town official in Phillips, Bailey is married with a young son.
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