Four adults and three children escaped what could have been serious injury when the van in which they were riding plunged 30 feet down an embankment off Park Loop Road in Acadia National Park Friday afternoon, a park spokesman said Saturday.

The crash happened about half a mile south of the entrance to Cadillac Mountain Road shortly after noon, when a Honda Odyssey traveling north veered across the oncoming lane, hit a coping stone and then left the roadway, spokesman John Kelly said.





The van went about 30 feet down an embankment before coming to a rest on its roof, Kelly said.

The driver, a 60-year-old man from Boxborough, Massachusetts, reported that he had dozed off, Kelly said. In addition to the driver, three adults and three children, ages 1, 4 and 6, were riding in the van, Kelly said.

All of the passengers had gotten out of the vehicle on their own by the time park rangers arrived at the scene, he said.

The driver suffered minor cuts and was treated at MDI Hospital. No one else was injured, Kelly said. He said the injuries likely would have been worse had the van not been equipped with air bags and other safety features.

Park Loop Road was closed between the Cadillac Mountain Road and The Bubbles trailhead parking lot for about an hour and a half after the crash so that the van could be hoisted back up the embankment.

Kelly said that L.E. Noorwood & Sons Masonry of Bar Harbor used a 100-foot boom truck to lift the vehicle to the road, where it was placed on flatbed truck for removal by Acadia Towing & Fleet Service of Bar Harbor.

No charges were filed in connection with the crash.