VAN BUREN — A 41-year-old Van Buren man traveling at a high rate of speed was killed Sunday after an early afternoon accident on Route 1 in Van Buren.
The accident also sent a Connecticut couple to Cary Medical Center in Caribou at around 12:30 and closed the road for nearly four hours.
Van Buren Police Sergeant Luc Dyer said Joseph Parent, 71, of Connecticut was driving northbound with a female passenger believed to be his wife in a 1997 Mercury Grand Marquis when Scott Cormier, driving a 2001 GMC Yukon, struck the back of his vehicle. The impact forced Parent’s vehicle off the road, into a ditch and then into a driveway. The vehicle barely missed hitting the house, Dyer said.
Cormier ‘s vehicle careened off the road, went airborne and vaulted over a guardrail and into a ravine. Cormier was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. His vehicle also caught fire, which was extinguished by the Van Buren Fire Department.
Van Buren Ambulance took Parent and his passenger to the Caribou hospital. Dyer said that the pair was in stable condition. He was not sure if they were wearing seatbelts, but said he believed they were.
Van Buren Police Chief Mike Bresett, Officer Cameron Dufour, Aroostook County Sheriff’s Detective Ross McQuade and State Police Trooper Chuck Michaud assisted at the scene.
