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Lobster boat captain charged in crewmen’s deaths arrested after reported overdose

March 27, 2017 — A Cushing captain accused of causing the deaths of two crew members when his lobster boat sank in a storm is behind bars again after he reportedly overdosed on heroin.

Christopher A. Hutchinson, 28, was arrested Thursday by the Maine Marine Patrol after U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby issued an arrest warrant for him Wednesday.

Hutchinson was in the Cumberland County Jail on Friday night after being transferred from the Knox County Jail in Rockland.

He is scheduled to go on trial later this year on two counts of seaman’s manslaughter for the deaths of Tom Hammond, 27, of Rockland and Tyler Sawyer, 15, of St. George and Waldoboro. The two were crew members aboard his lobster boat No Limits, which sank on Nov. 1, 2014.

Hutchinson was arrested Dec. 19 on the seaman’s manslaughter charges and released three days later on $10,000 unsecured bail. The court imposed conditions that Hutchinson not use or possess illegal narcotics.

But on March 13, Waldoboro emergency medical services and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of an unresponsive man at a residence in Friendship, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland.

Officials found Hutchinson unresponsive, not breathing and with a faint pulse, according to the report. Two doses of the drug Narcan were administered to Hutchinson, who then regained consciousness.

Hutchinson refused to be taken to the hospital and claimed he had been working long hours and had not eaten. He also said he was a diabetic.

Read the full story from The Courier Gazette at The Portland Press Herald 

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