Topsham, ME — A man died this week from the injuries he sustained in an accident with a garbage truck on Monday, February 9, earlier this month. Another man, Donald Schafer, 48, was also injured in the accident. Christopher Wheeler, 48, died on Tuesday, February 17, at a hospital in Lewiston, authorities confirmed,
The original accident happened along Route 196 in Topsham, near McConnell Motors, just south of Lisbon. Wheeler was driving his car west (with Donald Schafer as a passenger) along the highway that morning at about 6:15 a.m.
According to the news reports, Wheeler may have lost control of his car and veered into the eastbound lanes, where his car hit by an oncoming garbage truck. The two vehicles were in a near head-on wreck, which left both Schafer and Wheeler with major injuries.
The two men were taken to a hospital, where Wheeler died days later. Schafer’s condition wasn’t ever updated and it’s not clear how bad his injuries were. So far, it doesn’t look like the truck driver is being charged at all.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
The reports I read here weren’t exactly clear on what caused the driver to lose control that morning; does anyone else have any information about what happened? From a legal perspective, passengers in car accidents almost always have a guaranteed claim against whichever driver was at fault because passengers are rarely the cause of an accident. I say that because we get a lot of questions about what kind of right passengers have when the car they’re riding in gets into an accident. Unless there’s information here I’m not privy to, I would imagine that the same applies for this situation.
— Grossman Law Offices
