Two people were killed and another person critically injured Monday in a wrong-way crash that brought busy holiday traffic to a standstill for several hours on Interstate 295 in Maine, authorities said.
State police and several emergency crews responded to the serious crash that occurred shortly after 10 a.m. around mile marker 10 on the northbound side of I-295. They asked people to avoid the area while first responders tended to the injured and conducted their on-scene investigation just south of Exit 11 in Falmouth, a few miles north of Portland.
A reporter for NBC affiliate News Center Maine said he saw two vans from a funeral home arrive on scene.
State police initially had no information on the extent of anyone's injuries but confirmed in a press release around 5:30 p.m. Monday that 72-year-old Nancy Ezhaya, of Yarmouth, and 61-year-old Allen Apblett, of Oklahoma, had suffered fatal injuries. They were both pronounced dead at the scene. Apblett's 60-year-old wife was taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland; police said Tuesday she is in stable but critical condition.
According to state police, a preliminary investigation shows that a Toyota SUV driven by Ezhaya entered I-295 driving south in the northbound lane, crashing head-on into a Honda SUV headed north in the northbound lane.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Maine will conduct an autopsy and determine whether Ezhaya may have suffered a medical issue before entering the highway, police said Tuesday.
The crash remains under investigation.
The double fatal collision closed the highway at the end of the busy holiday weekend for about three hours, with traffic diverted onto Route 1 in Falmouth at Exit 9, News Center Maine reported. The interstate reopened around 1:15 p.m.
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Pictures from the scene showed lines of cars just parked on the highway.
Video shared by NBC10 Boston meteorologist Pete Bouchard showed one person was so bored waiting in traffic that he got out of his car and was dribbling a basketball, walking shirtless up and down the highway in flip flops.
Traffic appeared to have been significantly slowed on the southbound side of the highway, as well. A woman who said she passed the scene of the crash traveling south said she had never seen anything like it.
"Insane. People are outside of their cars just hanging out of standing on their roofs. Kids were riding scooters around and playing ball. Dogs were out on leashes. They must have been sitting there for a while. Backed up for a looooong time," Jill Yarrusso Fimbel wrote on Facebook, replying to the state police post.
An investigation is ongoing.
