Police won't bring charges after monster truck accident injures several spectators

TOPSHAM, Maine — A police investigator concluded no criminal charges were warranted after a lobster-themed monster truck clipped a power line, causing some scary moments with live wires falling to the ground. Two people were taken to hospitals.

Several people were injured Saturday when utility poles snapped and a transformer tumbled to the ground at the Topsham Fairgrounds. Witnesses said some people were trapped in portable toilets, which had wires on them.

Topsham Police Sgt. Mark Gilliam wrote in a report released Thursday that the driver was trapped in the cockpit because of a live power line and another wire was draped over an injured man on the ground. The injured spectator, who suffered a fractured vertebra, was taken to a hospital along with a woman experiencing back pain, he wrote. Others sought treatment on their own.

The driver, Gregory Winchenbach, 51, of Jefferson, told police that his truck had bounced over the dirt ramp several times without incident but that on Saturday afternoon it snagged the power line over the course, Gilliam wrote. Winchenbach said he couldn’t see the wire from the cockpit of the custom-made monster truck, the investigator wrote.

The monster truck was shaped to look like a lobster and named the Crushstation, a play on the word crustacean. Neither the owners of the truck nor the promoter of the event returned messages seeking comment.