LEWISTON — The first time a vehicle drove into the home at 4 Old Lisbon Road in 2023, it briefly displaced homeowners Paul and Claudette Dumont, causing the husband stress that his family said contributed to his death just five months later.

The second time it happened — in the early hours of May 21 — Claudette, 86, was asleep in her bedroom and barely escaped the wreckage alive. What’s worse is that one of the passengers in the car that struck the home, Natasha Thoits of Lewiston, didn’t survive the crash.

“My mother’s lived through the shock of having her house hit by a car twice,” her daughter, Denise Dumont, said. “And this time was way, way worse.”

The home, with its mortgage paid off by Claudette and her husband, was supposed to be a source of stability. Instead, the building is destroyed, along with a lot of mementos that were kept where the car hit.

The driver, 25-year-old Blaze Smalls of Lewiston, who suffered minor injuries, has not been charged in the crash.

Claudette can no longer live at the home, and Denise is imploring the city to make the road in front of it safer for whoever owns the property next.

Denise appeared June 3 before the Lewiston City Council, demanding action on what she called a long-ignored hazard: the sharp curve at Webster Street and Old Lisbon Road. She requested the city install speed bumps, a “dangerous curve ahead” sign and/or a solar-powered speed-aware radar sign, none of which would cost the city more than $5,000, she said.

After the meeting, city councilors agreed something must be done to help Claudette and that measures need to be taken to make Old Lisbon Road safer for residents and motorists.

Any improvements, however, would be too late for the elder Dumont.

“My parents worked their whole lives to pay off their mortgage so they could live mortgage free in their retirement,” Denise said. “And that’s gone.”

Even though the family has insurance, Denise said her mother knows all too well that it will not cover all expenses, any of her losses and only depreciated costs on assets.

Claudette had invested nearly $30,000 into the home since the 2023 crash, including a new heating system paid with her husband’s life insurance to install and a new toilet and bathroom flooring, gutters and a back deck.

“Now that investment is all gone,” Denise said, adding that the emotional trauma has been overlooked. “No one seems to consider the impact to the victim. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt, but because she wasn’t hurt, there is little legal recourse for her from a civil standpoint.”

Things could have been worse, though.

Denise said her daughter, a University of Southern Maine nursing student, had been planning to spend the night at Claudette’s home on the night of the crash so she could begin her first emergency room clinical rotation the next day at Central Maine Medical Center.

“My daughter was supposed to be sleeping in that front bedroom,” Denise said, adding that her daughter was notified of a last-minute change reassigning her shift. “Thank God she was not in that front room.”

Denise said it isn’t melodramatic that her mother likened the impact to a bomb going off in the center of the house. A hefty old dresser set next to her mother’s bed moved a full 6 inches and the toilet tank lid lifted off, she said. In the kitchen on the other side of the house all cupboard doors and microwave and oven doors were opened by the impact.

The crash destroyed the house and much of what was in it, Denise said, including an antique sewing machine that seems to have disintegrated from the impact.

“I couldn’t even find evidence of her sewing machine. I couldn’t find a piece of her sewing machine,” Denise said. “She had a whole collection of elephants — about 200 elephants in a glass case — that she was going to hand down to my daughter, Ella, who also loved elephants. It’s all gone. All gone.”

The wedding photo of Claudette and Paul? “Destroyed, and somewhere in the rubble.”

City officials said they are taking Denise’s comments to heart.

“What happened was absolutely tragic on many levels and unfortunately not the first time an incident has occurred on that corner nor the first time a vehicle has struck someone’s house in Lewiston,” Mayor Carl Sheline said in an email. “Speeding remains the most constant concern I receive from residents, and education and enforcement efforts are ongoing.”

Sheline added that the City Council is engaged with staff to determine next steps for a number of the issues Denise raised in the meeting.

Denise said she feels cautiously optimistic the city will take action. However, since the first crash in 2023, she has emailed city staff after every new incident near the property, but she noted there is no sign or flashing lights indicating drivers of a dangerous curve and no speed bumps have been installed. She received few replies and no follow-through, she said.

“The only thing they ever did was put those chevron directional signs up in front of the house,” she said. “This simply adds insult to injury. This is too little too late, and these signs do not stop speeding vehicles from causing irreparable property damage, personal trauma and displacement of my mother from her home for a second time, which could have been avoided.”

Since insurance won’t be enough to help her mother live comfortably, Denise asked the city assessor for a property tax abatement because the house was condemned by the city and is no longer habitable. She was told she would have to wait until next year.

“While this is certainly a terrible tragedy, state law does not allow us to grant abatement for this,” chief assessor William Healey told Denise in an email. “Property ownership, condition and situs are fixed as of April 1 each year. The accident occurred on May 28, 2025, nearly two months after the statutorily defined assessment date…”

In the meantime, Claudette will have a $1,400 tax payment in September and she’s already paid her first tax bill.

“I was like, are you kidding me? Like, let’s just hit her while she’s down. My God,” Denise said.

Now Claudette, limited to using a walker for movement, lives with Denise in her two-story home where she struggles to get up the stairs every day.

“She’s a tough lady,” she added. “But it’s maddening for her.”