TOPSHAM, Maine — Mike Hersom's three-year-old son is a big fan of monster trucks. Typically, when they get the chance to go see the real thing in person, he jumps at it.
That's precisely what Hersom did this past weekend when he bought tickets to the Renegade Monster Truck tour, hosted at Topsham Fairgrounds.
"We had gone to the event last year and my son loved it, so obviously we were thinking, let's go again this year," Hersom said.
He was hoping for an experience similar to years past, but things took a turn at the end of the show.
"It was the last monster truck round they were going to do, so I asked my son, 'Do you want to get a little bit closer?'"
That's when Hersom and his son left the grandstand and made their way to an open area near the field, joining a crowd of other people hoping to do the same. Shortly after, all of them ended up seeing more than they bargained for.
"A monster truck hit the jump, went straight up. I saw it hit the wire and then the chain reaction happened," Hersom described.
According to a report from the Topsham Police Department, a truck went over a jump and struck an aerial utility wire, pulling it down, along with several utility poles, at least one falling near the crowd of spectators.
"People fled. I grabbed my son immediately and ran in the opposite direction," Hersom said.
He was able to point himself out in a video that was published of the event, taken by Travis Ouellette. In it, you can see Hersom grabbing his son in the nick of time, just missing a transformer as it swung to the ground from a downed utility pole.
According to Topsham police, two people were taken to the hospital and several others had minor injuries, including Hersom and his son.
"Both of us had been hit by some debris that had come from maybe a splintering telephone pole," Hersom said. He and his son came out of the chaos with minor injuries, grateful that the outcome wasn't more severe, as he had witnessed it be for others.
"I remember seeing an older folk on the ground, clearly had been injured from the incident."
Now that the shock has worn off, Hersom says he has other concerns. "Monster trucks are a pretty routine thing, obviously they're big trucks, but you don't think there would be any kind of incident or event like what happened."
As he runs through the details of the event, Hersom is trying to find an explanation for what happened.
"I think it's possible the organizer may not have taken the correct safety precautions. Seeing how low the wire was, and maybe the monster truck had been driving the wrong way, that's all speculation, I'm not entirely sure, but obviously something had been neglected."
These concerns are something crews at the Fairgrounds are taking into consideration as they make repairs.
"We're putting everything higher," Tim Harmon, one of the crew members, said. Harmon says they replaced five of the original poles with taller ones and also lifted and tightened the utility wires. "It just makes more room for everybody and it's safer," he said.
These are the kind of precautions Hersom hopes will also be mirrored by the Renegade Monster Truck tour's organizers. "Do some more evaluation of the track and event center. That's going to obviously help tremendously," he suggested.
NEWS CENTER Maine has reached out to representatives from the Renegade Monster Truck tour, but has not yet heard back.