Thursday, January 13, 2000
Fatal crash closes I-75 for hours
Driver may have had stroke, police say
BY MARIE McCAIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LOCKLAND — Southbound Interstate 75 traffic was blocked for more than four hours near the Lockland exit Wednesday night after a truck driver died as his a flatbed tractor-trailer hit the median divider.
The driver, Daniel Taylor, 48, of Hawkingsville, Ga., was pronounced dead at the scene, said Lockland Police Lt. Greg Suber.
The one-vehicle crash occurred about 6:15 p.m. Firefighters and rescue personnel freed the driver from the wreckage and doused a small diesel fuel fire outside the truck.
Witnesses said the the driver swerved to the left and struck the concrete median. The truck came to a rest with the cab on the right side of the roadway and the flatbed trailer stretched across the three lanes of I-75.
“Our guess is he had a stroke or a heart attack,” Lt. Suber said.
Traffic was backed up to the Glendale-Milford exit, an ARTIMIS spokeswoman said.
Police were directing traffic off the interstate at the Shepard Lane exit in Lincoln Heights.
A number of motorists were stranded on the interstate just north of the tractor-trailer crash until police began allowing them to turn around and proceed north on southbound I-75 to the Lincoln Heights entrance ramp.
Tractor-trailers weren't able to turn around and remained stranded Wednesday night.
A clerk from nearby Westendorf's Market in Lockland approached a dividing fence and took food and bev erage orders from stranded motorists.
One of the motorists, Maile Wilson of Hyde Park, left her car and made her way to the market in search of a restroom.
“I said a prayer,” Ms. Wilson said when she learned a crash was the reason for the traffic tie-up. “I always say a prayer for the people involved in accidents.”
More than four hours after the accident, authorities opened one lane to southbound traffic.
A crew was on the way to the crash scene to clean up the diesel fuel that spilled when both of the truck's tanks ruptured during the crash, he said.
Lt. Suber estimated it would be 3 a.m. before all the lanes would be reopened to traffic.
Enquirer reporter William A. Weathers contributed to this report.
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