Captain Jeff Wilson says the driver was ejected and was seriously hurt. The victim was transported to Mosaic Life Care for treatment. Capt. Wilson says it appears that inattention led to the crash, and that the driver may have fallen asleep. Wilson did not release the man’s name.
Witnesses at the scene said the man was moving quite a bit when he was loaded into an ambulance.
The vehicle was empty, which witnesses said was a good thing. A full load of cement would have greatly complicated the accident, and the cleanup.
Multiple wreckers were deployed for the painstakingly slow process of pulling the vehicle along its original path and up the embankment without tipping it over. That required officials to close one westbound lane of U.S. Highway 36 near the 28th Street exit. The crash happened near a bridge over S.W. Parkway. The Parkway was closed near Duncan Street.
The accident happened shortly shortly after 11:15 am, according to a Trail Patrol volunteer in the area who heard the crash from about a block away. By 2:45pm the cleanup was still underway and the roads were still closed.