CAMDEN — A day after Tracy Harford escaped with minor injuries from a rolling front-end loader that fell over a retaining wall, a crane crew was on scene behind the Knox Mill in Camden to haul the 30,707-pound machinery into the air and back onto the pavement.

"It went pretty much as we scoped it out yesterday afternoon," said Dwight Henry, vice president of the Thomaston-based Arthur D. Henry, Inc., which provides crane services. He had visited the scene of the accident the day before, and with his tape measure, began calculating how the recovery of the front-end loader would proceed.

Camden loader, employee go over river bank at Knox Mill

Henry's father, Arthur, founded the company in 1952 and since then, the company has provided assistance throughout the area for projects, or incidents such as the accident that occured Friday afternoon in Camden.

Harford, an employee of Camden Public Works, was on his last leg of removing snow that had piled up following last weekend's blizzard. He had just one more load to dump into a nearby truck  before calling it a day.

As he was in the operator's seat moving snow near the entrance of the Knox Mill parking lot, the New Holland W170B the town had rented from Eagle Rental in Waterville tumbled over the side of a 20-foot retaining wall, and rolled twice onto its cab before coming to stop five feet from the mill pond, which is fed by the Megunticook River.

Harford was able to exit the cab on his own, stepping into deep snow and the river. With the help of the truck driver he was working with, as well as volunteers and first responders who arrived on the scene, he walked up the steep embankment to a waiting ambulance of Camden First Aid Association.

When he arrived at the emergency room, he took one boot off, turned it upside down, and out poured a boot-load of water. His injuries included cuts to his head and hand, bruises, as well as other abrasions to his head.

But by late afternoon Friday, he was back in Camden, assessing the loader and the situation. On Saturday morning, he was again at the scene, ready to help.

Harford is Searsmont firefighter, accustomed to emergencies. He knows how first responders and others scrambled to help him on Friday.

"Tell everyone I thank them very much," he said, Saturday morning, as a group of crane operators and Jim Stewart, owner of the Orrington-based Stewart's Wrecker Service, set the crane into place, and hooked cables to the loader's bucket.

Working in tandem, Stewart hauled the loader closer to wall. Then, Henry, his son, Justin, and Chris Eustis, adjusted cables on the loader to begin lifting it into the air. The crane required the loader be pulled approximately 20 feet into a safe working radius before it could hauled vertically over the retailing wall.

Positioning the loader took much of the morning, and then once it was in place, the crane hauled it back over the edge and onto pavement.

Initially, Camden Public Works thought the flat tire on it might be repaired on site, making it possible to drive the loader back to the public works garage, but it was determined that that would not be the case. The loader remains at the Knox Mill parking lot. Camden rents the parking lot for $1 a year for public parking.

Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached by email at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com or by calling 207-706-6657.