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U.S. 75 shut down
Maria Jaral/McKinney Courier-Gazette - A McKinney firefighter uses extraction equipment, normally used to bend metal to pull victims trapped in wrecked vehicles, to clamp a leaking diesel fuel line on a wrecked 18-wheeler on U.S. 75 Wednesday.
WRECK: An 18-wheeler that capsized along U.S. 75 caused a huge afternoon traffic jam.
By Danny Gallagher, McKinney Courier-Gazette
An overturned semi created a barricade across southbound U.S. 75 Wednesday afternoon -- and a massive cleanup for McKinney firefighters and state troopers.
The 2:30 p.m. accident took place on the southbound side of U.S. 75, just after the White Street overpass, officials said.
An 18-wheeler tipped over and slid across the highway as its driver tried to avoid hitting a second vehicle. That other vehicle had veered out of control, coming to rest directly in the path of the semi, officials said.
That second vehicle, said McKinney Fire Chief Mark Wallace, was a Ford F-150 pickup truck hauling a small dump truck attached to a trailer. The F-150 headed down a hill that stretches over White Street. The driver began to lose control of the vehicle because of an unstable payload on the trailer.
It swerved around and ended up just south of the Virginia Parkway exit ramp positioned across both lanes of the southbound highway.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned 18-wheeler -- which had Illinois license plates -- was following the truck at a distance of several hundred feet. Its driver travelled over the hill then saw the vehicle stretched across the highway.
The driver of the 18-wheeler managed to avoid hitting the pickup truck, but the sudden braking also caused his vehicle to swerve.
The semi sideswiped at least two other cars and tipped the large vehicle over on the driver side, officials said. The vehicle slid into the end of a metal barricade and came to rest perpendicular to the highway -- barricading both lanes of the southbound highway and the Virginia Parkway exit ramp and blocking all subsequent traffic, reports show.
Gil Ayala, a salesman at the Huffines Kia dealership on the east side of U.S. 75, saw the semi tip over and ran towards the accident with several fellow employees to get the driver out of the vehicle.
"As I heard the brakes screeching, I saw (the semi) jack-knife and turn over," Ayala said. "I told the receptionist to call 911 and I went up with three other guys and tried to get the driver out."
The men kicked out the cab's windshield and pulled the driver to safety. Ayala said the only apparent injury was a bloody and bruised arm. He also said the driver appeared "dazed but conscious."
Wallace said the driver was transported by ambulance to Medical Center of McKinney for treatment of minor injuries. The driver of the pickup did not require medical attention.
The overturned semi caused a number of problems for police and fire crews. It took at least an hour to turn the truck around to allow only one lane of traffic for a row of cars at least five-and-a-half miles long.
Some drivers got out of the cars as they waited to move in bumper to bumper traffic. A group of teenagers walked up the side of the hill to get a closer view of the overturned semi before a police officer asked them to leave.
The semi also sprayed approximately 70 to 80 gallons of diesel fuel down parts of the highway and the exit ramp.
McKinney Fire Training Officer Ron Moore said the accident punctured a fuel filter under the cab of the 18-wheeler. Firefighters had to use extraction equipment, better known as "the jaws of life," to clamp the fuel line. An independent Hazardous Materials team was also called in to clean up the mess.
The semi was also carrying a large payload of free-standing fireplaces. Wallace said another truck had to be called in to haul away the fireplaces before a tow truck could get the 18-wheeler off of the highway.
As police and fire crews worked the accident scene, a couple of passing cars also got into some minor accidents, unfortunate events that Wallace said were "pretty common when you've got all this."
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com.
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