Former Island Explorer Driver Whose Quick Thinking Saved a Vacationing Mom Has Died
BAR HARBOR—Some people will do anything for you even if it might be breaking the rules a little bit.
Cindy Orcutt, who died April 2, was that kind of person.
And because she was? Another woman survived.
Back in the summer of 2008, Cindy was driving an Island Explorer bus. Marjorie Neidecker and her four children were on Cindy’s full bus. Marjorie, in the back of the bus, had acute chest pain. Her daughter hollered up to Cindy that something was happening. They needed help. More than that, they needed help fast.
“And that’s when I just said, ‘We’re going to the hospital,’” Cindy told the Mount Desert Islander’s Rob Levin.
Cindy knew that it would take time for ambulance personnel to get to the bus in the summer traffic. So, she turned off her route, travelled by Kids Corner, and headed straight to the Mount Desert Island Hospital emergency room, letting the dispatcher for the busses know her choice.
Luckily, Marjorie not only had Cindy as her driver, but there were also two paramedics onboard. They kept her breathing and put her in a wheelchair outside the Bar Harbor hospital where she’d turned white and died. She was revived twice in the emergency room and spent time in other hospitals in Bangor and Boston before getting home to Ohio.
“I literally owe her my life. I do,” Marjorie told Levin.
Eventually, due to her diabetes impacting her vision, Cindy had to stop driving for the Island Explorer and the Ellsworth school system. The Bangor Road home she and her husband Jerry rented for two decades caught fire in November 2013, leaving them homeless and staying at the Colonial Inn. At the time, Jerry had cancer. Friends and the community rallied behind them.
Their daughter, Aimee Keigan, said at the time, “My parents are tough. They are gritty. They are survivors. They don’t deserve this, but if anyone can handle this, I know they can.”
They did. And while they did, they kept helping others, too.
Born in Bangor, Cindy was an athlete throughout school and her basketball team won the 1976 Eastern Maine Championships.
“She was fiercely proud of her children and grandchildren and carried pictures and stories of them with her wherever she went,” her obituary reads. “She would do just about anything for anybody if she thought it would help them.
She was a storyteller, seamstress, a mom, a wife, sister, and grandmother. She decorated cakes. And she was very much a hero.
Cindy was 67 when she died. Jerry died in 2016. A celebration of her life will occur at Hammond Street Congregational Church on June 7, 2025, at 1 p.m.
Memorial donations may be made in her honor to Bangor Humane Society by contacting Director of Development, Kathryn Ravenscraft at kathrynr@bangorhumane.org.
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ThankYou for this memorial appreciation.
As a tourist, I rode the Explorer since it started. The DownEast Transportation system enabled my decision to move to MDI. Now I rely on it. I'd like to say, this story is representative of the drivers and administration - who literally and figuratively go the extra mile for our community. We are very fortunate in the year round and seasonal service. ThankYou.
One note. Service for Jackson Lab employees is a mainstay of year round commuter service. The Republican regime's anti-science bias may negatively impact the lab and as a result the bus system.