ROCKPORT — A violent head-on crash in Rockport Monday afternoon, in the vicinity of State of Maine Cheese and Rockport Park Center, resulted in three people being taken to Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport with various and varying injuries. All three were eventually taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor in serious to near-critical condition.

Rockport Police Sgt. Travis Ford said Monday night that Terry Ripley, 43, of Northport, was driving her 1995 Ford Escort station wagon southbound on Route 1 with a passenger, 31-year-old Melissa Parker of Lincolnville. Traveling in the opposite direction in a 2003 Mini Cooper was 73-year-old Thomas Tarbox of Camden.

At around 3 p.m., the two cars crashed head-on, with both of the driver's side front ends sustaining the brunt of the impact and damage. Ford said it was too early to determine what caused the accident.

"I couldn't speak with two of the people involved yet, but I do have a statement from one of them as well as eyewitnesses," said Ford. "Until I speak with everybody and we crunch the numbers from the accident reconstruction, I don't want to speak to the cause."

At the scene of the accident Monday afternoon, April 29, a bystander, working from two buildings down the road, said she came out of her office to see what had happened after hearing what sounded like "an explosion."

Both vehicles were located in the southbound lane of Route 1 when first responders arrived. Initial reports were that at least one of the cars was on fire, but a bystander said someone used a fire extinguisher to quell it. When firefighters arrived on scene, neither car was on fire, or smoking, though fluids were leaking onto the road from the front of the Ford Escort.

Tarbox was the first to be removed from his Mini Cooper. He was moved out on a board and then placed on a stretcher and moved into an awaiting Camden First Aid Association ambulance.

Ripley and Parker's legs and ankles appeared to trapped in the station wagon, and the women had to be removed with the help of hydraulic extrication equipment and members of the CFAA Access Team. They two were taken out on backboards and moved to ambulances on stretchers.

The accident slowed traffic on busy Route 1 to an alternating single lane, with traffic backed up to Pascal Avenue to the north and the southern end of Rockville Street to the south.

All three patients appeared to be awake and alert at the scene, and in varying levels of pain. Rockland Police Sgt. Ken Smith arrived at the accident soon after Ripley, Parker and Tarbox had been removed from their cars. Smith was called on to assist with accident reconstruction. Ford is the lead investigator.

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