RUMFORD — Factors combined Saturday evening to create a busier than usual night for Rumford police officers.

During a snowstorm, they handled several simultaneous accidents, sought help to close a road due to dangerous driving conditions and made one arrest for drunken driving, Chief Stacy Carter said Tuesday afternoon.

Cpl. Donald Miller and officer Brad Gallant were assisted by Rumford firefighters, a Mexico police officer and Maine Game Warden Brock Clukey.

Budget cuts in 2009 reduced night patrols to two officers.

At 7:58 p.m., Miller and Gallant were sent to investigate an accident on Route 2 just beyond the old Rowe Ford lot. A dispatcher in Paris told the officers that the driver who was thought to be intoxicated, was unresponsive.

Carter said that turned out to be a drunken-driving arrest. Aaron Arsenault, 26, of Hanover, was charged with operating under the influence. He was driving a 2003 Mercury Sable. Arsenault couldn’t make bail and was taken to Oxford County Jail in Paris.

While the officers were handling that accident and arrest, reports started coming in of multiple vehicle accidents on the Isthmus Road.

Saturday was Black Mountain of Maine’s annual Winterfest Weekend and Warden Clukey was on duty at the event. He radioed for help with accidents, and asked the dispatcher to call out Rumford Public Works to sand and salt the road.

Clukey said it was “extremely slippery.”

Carter said Gallant was sent to handle the Isthmus Road accidents.

At 8:16 p.m., Meagan Brann, 17, of Dixfield spun out on black ice while driving a 1998 Ford and struck a 2004 Chevy driven by Valerie Patenaude, 39, of Hartford, Carter said.

The accident happened on a steep hill toward the Route 120 end of Isthmus Road.

“It’s kind of a steep hill that we have issues with at times,” Carter said.

“There were several slide-offs. It took a little bit of time to get somebody up there.”

At 8:15 p.m., Amy Hodsdon, 44, of Roxbury, driving a 2004 Jeep, slid on ice down a slope and struck a 2008 Honda driven by Kelly Pelletier, 44, of Mexico, Carter said.

He said Rumford firefighters were called out to shut down the upper end of Isthmus Road to stop vehicle traffic.

Clukey radioed for a Mexico police officer to shut down the Route 120 end of the road, which he did until he was sent to respond to a complaint.

Carter said Adley’s Auto was called to pull vehicles back onto the road, including Patenaude’s, which was pulled out of a snowbank. Rumford police no longer give damage estimates.

Clukey and Gallant were stuck handling the accidents for two to 2.5 hours, before the road could be salted and sanded enough for traffic to resume travel, Carter said.

“They come and put down a bunch of salt and it didn’t take long for it to start breaking up (the ice),” Carter said.

“We didn’t have a lot of snow, but with the right consistency and because of the amount of traffic, it packed down and became very icy.”

In other Rumford police news, Carter said officers have been making several drunken-driving arrests this winter, thanks to a Bureau of Public Safety Impaired Driving Grant the department received.

The grant, he said, will enable extra patrols through Labor Day.

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