Fire Truck Totaled While Responding to Crash
Posted By J.T. on July 19, 2009
The West Peculiar Fire Department was responding to an overturned vehicle Wednesday evening, when a semi-trailer ran into a fire truck at full speed.
The truck, Engine 51, was partially parked on the right lane of southbound U.S. 71 when a passenger car swerved to avoid hitting the truck. Then “the semi came in at a high rate of speed and just plowed into the back of the truck” said Fire Chief Doug Short. The driver, a 57 year old man from Canada was flown by Life Flight to a hospital, where he was in critical condition.
No-one was in the fire truck and none of the firefighters were injured. The damage to the totaled truck will be around $500,000 however. The West Peculiar FD is now down to 2 trucks while they figure out how to get Engine 51 replaced.
Fire Chief Short also had this to say: “when folks are driving down the road and they see something going on the side they want to see what’s going on. It draws them away from what they should be doing, which is paying attention to the roadway.”
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