Icy road conditions and some poor driving choices caused five separate crashes involving a dozen vehicles on Monday morning in central Maine.
Maine State Police said they responded to Interstate 395 westbound on the bridge in Brewer at 7:20 a.m. Monday. A Toyota Tacoma had lost control due to the icy conditions and crashed in the third lane. The pickup was facing the wrong way and blocking traffic.
The icy conditions proceeded to cause three more crashes in this area in the next few minutes. In all, 10 vehicles were involved.
One female driver was taken to Saint Joseph's Hospital with complaints of pain due to airbag deployment, but no other injuries were reported.
I-395 westbound was closed for about 30 minutes due to the crashes.
While state police troopers were on scene westbound, several vehicles began using a crossover east of the scene to go from I-395 westbound to I-395 eastbound. This caused eastbound traffic to slow abruptly, causing another 2-vehicle crash eastbound.
There were no injuries due to this crash, but it did cause I-395 eastbound to be reduced to one lane for about 35 minutes.
Using crossovers is prohibited, but the crossover violators continued on and were not there when troopers arrived, according to state police.
