Moose accident strands truckers

Residents ‘very nice’ to visitors
By Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — An encounter with a moose left two out-of-town truckers stranded for a week in Houlton, their cargo sidelined and the moose dead.
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Elna Seabrooks
WICKED BAD BREAK — Tsehaye Woldu, far right, examines moose hair imbedded in the grill of the truck he was driving when a moose crossed in front of him on U.S. 1 late last Tuesday. Repairs were done at DBJ McGuire. Fellow trucker, Clinton VanHook, far left, said area residents treated them well during their weeklong stay in Houlton. With them is Mitchell Harris, DBJ McGuire shop foreman, (next to VanHook) and Anthony Long, a diesel mechanic who worked on some of the repairs. Harris reminds drivers to be careful on the road.
    The men were hauling 45,000 pounds of potatoes to Idaho, of all places, when a moose bounced off the front of their 18-wheeler twice forcing the truck to hobble off to DBJ McGuire on North Street while the cargo was towed.
    Tsehaye Woldu said he was driving about 45 mph when the moose was crossing the road. “I saw something that looked like a dinosaur that came right in front of me. He jumped all the way to the front and I hit him again.”
    Fellow trucker Clinton VanHook said it was about 10:30 p.m., May 4 when they were on U.S. Rt. 1 headed for I-95, a little more than a mile away from the Interstate. “I flew out of my bed. I was sound asleep in the back of the truck,” said VanHook who lives in Winterville, N.C.
    Woldu,  said he used his brakes “but it was not enough and he jumped again to the front” cracking the right windshield. The front of the cab was cracked badly in several places. The radiator was pushed up into the motor and the grill was destroyed. Engine sensors broke off and the air charger was damaged. The vehicle was “not drivable” said Mitchell Harris, DBJ McGuire shop foreman, who estimated the damage at between $7,000-$8,000 for parts and repairs. Harris said the moose was probably two years old based on the damage and he had seen worse.
    Several local residents, probably on the road behind the truckers, came to their aid and hauled the moose off the road since it was in the middle of U.S. 1.
    Waldu, originally from the State of Eritrea, on the horn of Africa, has been living in Atlanta for about six years. He said he likes Houlton’s quiet lifestyle and residents have treated him well. VanHook agreed saying “people have been really nice.”
    Lynn York of York’s Bookstore took them out for dinner to Elm Tree North and to Grammy’s Country Inn. He also introduced the visitors to ice cream from Houlton Farms Dairy Bar which they said they enjoyed.
    York, an unofficial ambassador of goodwill took them around the area to see several sights like the airport, Smith & Wesson, the Canadian border and, as VanHook put it, “everything in Houlton.” VanHook and Woldu said they really enjoyed eating fiddleheads and hoped to have some moose meat when they visited the Maliseet Indian reservation. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out.
    York laughed and said it could have almost been a revenge meal. Perhaps on another visit to Houlton. However, he gave each man a small souvenir moose statue fashioned from pewter. At presstime their repairs were almost ready for them to leave.