THE FORKS -- The passenger in a southbound pickup truck was taken to a Bangor hospital Monday night after the driver reportedly passed a tractor-trailer and cut back into the travel lane too quickly, police said Tuesday.

Lt. Carl Gottardi of the Somerset County Sheriff's Department said the tractor-trailer hit the pickup at a curve in the road on U.S. Route 201, sending the truck down an embankment, where it rolled over.

Both men in the pickup truck were trapped inside the vehicle, he said.

"The contact occurred due to the pickup truck cutting back into the travel lane, without passing the tractor-trailer completely," Gottardi said. "Once the pickup truck was struck, the truck traveled approximately 210 feet, and then the truck went approximately 30 feet over an embankment and rolled over."

A fuel tank, located in the bed of the pickup, was catapulted out of the truck and into water in a culvert at the bottom of the embankment.

Nathan Thompson, an oil and hazardous materials specialist from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, was sent to the scene to investigate Tuesday morning.

"It was a pickup truck with one of those portable diesel tanks in the back they use for fueling skidders and other logging equipment," Thompson said. "When I got there this morning, they had already yarded out the truck; the tank, which they said had been ejected from the truck, was nonleaking and it was sitting upright. All that had been removed last night."

There was no environmental concern, he said.

Emergency workers from the West Forks Fire Department used hydraulic tools to cut the men from the wreckage of the pickup, Gottardi said.

All three men in both vehicles are from Canada. Both vehicles were southbound, about 500 feet south of Berry's General Store in West Forks, when the accident happened just before 5:30 p.m. Monday.

Edouard Drouin, 59, of St. Prosper, Quebec, who was the passenger in the red 2006 Ford F-250 pickup, suffered apparent neck and back pain.

A LifeFlight helicopter was dispatched to the accident but later was turned back, Gottardi said.

Drouin was taken by ambulance to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Gottardi said his injuries were not life-threatening.

The driver of the pickup, Guy Dube, 37, also of St. Prosper, was not injured.

The driver of the black, 2006 Western tractor-trailer, loaded with logs, was Jonathan Drouin, 33, of St. Camille de Bellechasse, Québec. He was the only person in the tractor-trailer and was not injured.

The tractor-trailer is owned by Doryfor Inc., of Québec.

The tractor-trailer, which struck the Ford on the rear passenger's side, had minor damage to its front bumper, Gottardi said.

The pickup truck was destroyed.

Gottardi said the diesel fuel tank in the back of the pickup truck was retrieved from the water by Charlie & Sons wrecker service of Skowhegan and Danny McDonald, who has heavy equipment at his nearby garage.

Deputy Eugene Cole of the sheriff's department investigated the accident. Trooper Joseph Parker, of the Maine State Police, commercial vehicle unit, also investigated.

Gottardi said the accident remains under investigation. No charges had been brought as of Tuesday.

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534, ext. 342

dharlow@centralmaine.com