A 22-year-old North Berwick woman was ejected from her pickup truck and a father and daughter were trapped inside a burning SUV after a three-vehicle crash Saturday morning on Route 202 in Lebanon, Maine. Samantha Hobbs, 22, suffered serious injuries when her white Chevy Silverado crossed the center line of the highway, striking a blue Jeep Wrangler and then a black Ford Expedition, according to investigators.
Multiple callers reported the three-vehicle crash near 899 Carl Broggi Highway, and responding agencies arrived around 10:45 a.m., according to the NBC Boston report, which cites the York County Sheriff's Office as saying multiple agencies responded to the scene. Hobbs was driving north when she crossed into oncoming traffic, hitting the Jeep driven by Kelly Galarza, 50, before colliding with the Expedition carrying her husband, Nestor Galarza, 50, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the couple's daughter, Rosabella Galarza.
The Expedition caught fire during the crash, trapping Nestor and Rosabella Galarza inside before responding crews were able to extinguish the flames and free them, per the same account. Hobbs was ejected from her pickup truck; her condition was not immediately known following the crash. The cause of her crossing into oncoming traffic remains unclear, and the investigation is ongoing.
Multi-Agency Response Mobilized Across York County
Beyond the Maine State Police and Lebanon Fire Department, crews from the Sanford Fire Department, North Berwick Rescue, and Frisbie EMS also responded to the scene, according to a York County Sheriff's Office post. Rural towns in southern Maine frequently rely on inter-town mutual aid agreements to handle multi-patient traffic incidents like this one. The Lebanon Fire and EMS Department, which maintains a station on Carl Broggi Highway, logged roughly 1,000 emergency calls in 2024, about 75 percent of which were medical emergencies, according to the Town of Lebanon.
LifeFlight of Maine airlifted Hobbs to Portsmouth Regional Hospital following the crash. The Galarza family was taken to Frisbie Memorial Hospital, treated for their injuries, and later released, per the NBC Boston report. LifeFlight of Maine experienced its busiest summer on record in 2024, routinely averaging 10 to 12 emergency critical care transports daily across the state, according to LifeFlight of Maine.
The family was traveling with three dogs and a cat, all of which were uninjured and secured by the Lebanon animal control officer. The Maine Department of Transportation closed Carl Broggi Highway with barricades, and the roadway remained shut for about two hours while crews worked the scene.
State Police Reconstructing the Crash
The Maine State Police is reconstructing the crash to determine what caused Hobbs to cross the center line. Complex collisions involving severe injury or ejection in Maine are handled by the Maine State Police Crash Reconstruction Unit, a specialized team of troopers, county deputies, and municipal officers trained in physics-based vector analysis and occupant kinematics, according to the Maine State Police. Their reports typically evaluate environmental, mechanical, and human factors across the pre-crash, impact, and post-crash phases of an incident.
Federal motor vehicle safety research has found that lap and shoulder seat belts reduce the risk of occupant ejection or fatal injury in pickup truck and SUV collisions by 60 percent, according to World Population Review. Maine law treats seat belt non-compliance as a primary traffic offense, carrying a $50 fine for a first violation, which allows officers to pull over vehicles solely for unbuckled occupants.
A Corridor With a History of Serious Crashes
Route 202 through Lebanon has seen severe multi-vehicle accidents before, including an August 2013 four-vehicle pileup on Carl Broggi Highway that injured seven people and required multi-agency emergency transports, per the Bangor Daily News. The highway serves as a key regional link between southern Maine and Rochester, New Hampshire, and U.S. Route 202 extends 205 miles across the state, carrying substantial daily commuter and freight volume between York County and Strafford County, New Hampshire.
In March, the Maine Department of Transportation began a $1.588 million safety improvement project on Route 202 in Lebanon at Long Swamp Road and Center Road, aimed at realigning the intersection and constructing protected left-turn lanes with raised islands, according to the Maine Department of Transportation. It remains unknown whether weather or road design at the specific stretch where Saturday's crash occurred played any role, and investigators have not released findings on why Hobbs's truck crossed into oncoming traffic.
