And You Think Your Day Sucked: Throw Back To When Fisherman Sank 2 Trucks In Ocean At Lamoine
"It could always be worse."
It's something that's often said to put life into perspective.
This time last year, was a perfect example of that saying, come to life! So let's take a look back, shall we?
When my van wouldn't start this morning, leaving my kids momentarily stranded with no ride to school, I thought to myself "This day sucks!"
Later on in the day, my friend Tracy, sent me some photos that made me instantly appreciate that it was only a dead battery I had to deal with, in a dry driveway.
The pictures she sent me were of two trucks, mostly submerged in the ocean waters of Marlboro Beach in Lamoine.
Naturally, wanting to know how this came to be, and why Tracy had pictures, I called her.
It seems she had headed over to Marlboro Beach to park in a place with a beautiful view while she did some afternoon crocheting.
And that's when things started to get a little weird.
"I'm sitting at the beach and I'm crocheting, and I can hear somebody screaming! Well, I looked and saw a guy on the other end and he was flagging his arms all around. The way he was acting I thought someone was over there dying. So I started my vehicle and headed over. The battery had died in his truck, and the water was coming up over it and he wanted to know if I would pull him out."
Tracy says she offered to try but the rope he had for her to pull him out with too short, and she didn't want to back into the water.
The guy she was talking with was a clam digger. And he, like most clam diggers, had driven up and parked close to the water line. But when he returned, he found that he couldn't get the truck started, and the tide was coming in quickly. So it was a race against time.
"I tried calling AAA, but they had me on hold, so I hung up and called 911. They connected me with the State Police."
Weed was on the phone actively trying to get a hold of someone to come help the man, when he all of the sudden jumped into a different truck, parked nearby, and drove that down to the water in an attempt to pull his own truck out.
"As I'm on the phone with them, the guy hops into somebody else's truck and takes that and backs that into the water, up to his truck so he can try to haul it out. Then he shuts it off and can't get it started again."
To be clear, this guy did NOT have permission to take the other truck. In fact, the owner of the second truck was halfway across the beach.
"That poor guy. He was clamming himself and came back in halfway through it and he was looking like 'there's my boat trailer...where's my truck?' I could see him in the boat, and his arms were up in the air 'cause he was noticing his truck in the water. And I let him know there was a wrecker on the way."
Weed said the first guy had taken off at this point, and was either waiting for the State Police or the wrecker, but didn't want to be around when the owner of the truck he stole came back to shore.
When the tow truck did show, it wasn't able to get close enough to the two trucks to pull them out, as it weighed too much. This left the owner of the second truck making desperate phone calls on Weed's phone, to get anyone who could come help.
Thankfully, a friend of his was nearby and had long enough rope that they were able to get his truck out at least.
According to the Maine State Police:
"...Justin Pomeroy (36) of Searsport had mechanical issues on the clam flats and his truck died while tide was coming in. Pomeroy did not have permission to take a fellow clamdigger’s, Dana Parsley (33) of Lamoine, truck in an attempt to recover his own truck, and got Parsley’s stuck as well. Parsley’s truck was recovered then, but Pomeroy’s was recovered at low tide later on."
But the first truck was a total loss.
An ambulance did arrive on the scene to check the first man for hypothermia.
According to the Maine Department of Public Safety Spokesperson, Shannon Moss, the man who used the truck that wasn't his has been summonsed.
"Pomeroy was summonsed for Theft by Unauthorized Use."
Weed said, despite having seen a lot in her lifetime, this was not how she expected her afternoon to go.
"I went am I'm thinking I'm gonna go and I'm gonna crochet and I'm gonna have a peaceful morning, but that's not what happened at all."
Only in Maine, right?
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