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Recent observations on the GRB 000301c afterglow show that three breaksappear in the R-band light curve, and in particular the decay slope at latetimes is as steep as -3.0. This unusual afterglow is clearly inconsistent withthe standard afterglow shock model. Here we propose a non-standard model forthe unusual R-band afterglow of GRB 000301c. In this model, anultra-relativistic shock in a dense medium ("dirty environment")rapidly evolvedto the non-relativistic phase in initial 1 day. During such a phase, the shockhappened to be caught up with by two energetic shells ejected from the centralengine at two different times, and the shock was refreshed, leading to twoflattenings of the light curve. After each interaction between the shock andshell, the afterglow decayed as $\propto t^{-3.0}$ if the electron distributionindex of the shocked medium, $p\approx 3.4$, derived from the optical spectrum.Therefore, this model can provide an excellent explanation for the flatteningand steepening features of the GRB 000301c optical afterglow light curve. Wefurther point out that the energy injection shells ejected from the centralengine at later times may be material shells (e.g., in the massive starprogenitor models related to black holes) or radiation shells (e.g., in themillisecond pulsar progenitor models).Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX (aaspp4.sty

Could the unusual optical afterglow of GRB 000301c arise from a non-relativistic shock with energy injection?