CAMDEN — Accumulated snow on Turnpike Drive (Route 52) and a driver in a new vehicle combined in a bad way Sunday afternoon, resulting in a two-car, near head-on crash alongside Megunticook Lake.

Camden First Aid Association and Camden Fire Department were called to the crash site, just below Maiden's Cliff and west of the Beaucaire Avenue intersection, around 1 p.m., Feb. 24. Rockport Police Officer Dana Smith responded too, as Camden police were busy at the time with an unattended death in town.

Smith said 65-year-old Judith Carver, of Lincolnville, was driving a 2005 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck toward Camden when she lost control.

Carver said she spun around completely in the roadway at least once before crashing into an oncoming 1999 Chevrolet sport utility vehicle traveling down the hill toward Lincolnville.

"All I could think was I was scared to death to go into the lake, it's always my biggest fear when I drive along here," said Carver.

Carver's husband, Norman, said he was traveling in front of his wife when she lost control. He continued ahead, not knowing she had crashed until he got up the hill and into Camden, where he waited for her. When she didn't catch up, he turned around and came upon the accident back down the hill, he said.

"I don't know what happened, but she caught some slush or snow and started sliding," said Norman Carver. "I was traveling in my old truck, and she had the new one. But I had a load of firewood and the two grandsons in the truck, so we were weighted down."

Norman Carver said they had just bought the Tacoma his wife was driving, and it was newly registered earlier this month, according to Smith.

"I don't know what her speed was, but the roads were pretty bad and I believe driver inexperience with the new truck also contributed to her losing control," said Smith. "She overcorrected and that didn't work, and she just went out of control."

Smith said the driver in the oncoming SUV, Michael Ashley, 49, of Hinckley, Ohio, said he saw Carver's truck start going sideways, and then sideways again and then sideways yet again. Ashley said he was unable to avoid colliding with her when the two vehicles eventually met.

After the impact, Ashley's SUV went off the road and struck a large rock on the mountain side of the road, causing a jarring injury to his passenger, Cheryl Battles, 56, of Camden.

Smith said Battles was wearing her seat belt, and the impact of the vehicle with the boulder likely caused the neck pain she was complaining of at the scene.

All three occupants were able to get themselves out of their vehicles either before or after rescuers arrived, and Smith said a dog in the back of Ashley's vehicle was OK, too.

The Tacoma's airbag deployed, but the airbags in the Chevrolet did not.

"Everyone was belted in, which was good," said Smith.

Battles was taken to Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport to be evaluated, while the two drivers were uninjured.

The Tacoma was totaled in the crash and the SUV sustained likely repairable damage.

Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards can be reached by email at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com or by calling 207-706-6655.