A telescopic forklift, also known as a telehandler, fell off the back of a flatbed truck and landed upside down on Harpswell Islands Road on Tuesday, Nov. 12, on Orr’s Island.
Cumberland County Sheriff’s Deputy George Bradbury, who responded to the scene, said a driver for the Richmond-based contractor Wyman & Simpson Inc. was hauling the vehicle on a flatbed trailer for use in construction work.
The incident occurred as the trailer was rounding a corner on Harpswell Islands Road near Lowell’s Cove. Although it was secured to the flatbed with chains, the telehandler shifted position and fell off the trailer, landing wheels-up in the roadway.
“It’s a big, heavy piece of equipment,” Bradbury said in an interview. “The chains got loose and it moved a little bit on the trailer, and actually broke a board on the trailer.”
Once the forklift started to fall off the edge, its weight snapped the chains that were holding it in place, Bradbury said.
“It was extremely lucky that there was no one there, no one coming, and it stayed in the road and didn’t hit a house,” he said.
Bradbury said it wasn’t the driver’s fault, because he had no way of knowing the chains had come loose. Maine State Police’s Commercial Vehicle Unit was called to the scene but found no reason to cite the driver, he said.
“It was basically an accident,” Bradbury said. The incident caused several gouges in the roadway and led to a temporary lane closure Tuesday afternoon.
