Trucker killed in Interstate 70 crash
A truck driver died Tuesday morning after he was struck by a tractor-trailer after crashing his own rig minutes earlier on Interstate 70 in Buffalo Township, prompting the highway’s closure for more than eight hours.
Bradley Collins, 53, of Bloomingburg, Ohio, was traveling west in his Conway Freight double tractor-trailer when he crashed about 7 a.m. near the Claysville exit, state police said.
Police said Collins got out of his rig and then was struck by another westbound truck hauling steel coils, which then careened down an embankment before coming to rest in a stream 100 yards from the highway.
Collins, who was lying in the median as other motorists tried to resuscitate him, was flown by medical helicopter to UPMC-Presbyterian hospital in Pittsburgh, where he was pronounced dead about five hours after the crash, the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy to determine a cause of death was planned for this morning.
State police did not immediately identify the driver of the other tractor-trailer or the severity of his injuries.
The westbound lanes between the Claysville and Taylorstown exits were closed for more than eight hours, backing up traffic to the Chestnut Street exit in North Franklin Township, as crews worked to remove debris scattered from Collins’ trailer that was broken in half. Numerous motorists were stuck on the highway behind the wreckage, unable to turn around until police rerouted them onto Route 40 after nearly five hours.
John Kleist III, 36, was traveling from Monroeville for a conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he noticed a tractor-trailer directly ahead of him braking before it jackknifed. That rig avoided the wreckage ahead by a few feet and Kleist slid for a lengthy period before stopping short of the jackknifed truck.
“I felt blessed that I didn’t get involved in it,” Kleist said about coming upon the consecutive crashes a few seconds later. “I was just as worried about what was coming behind me as what was ahead.”
He said several motorists found Collins lying in the snow-covered median and they attempted to resuscitate him before emergency responders arrived at the scene.
“There were a multitude of truckers trying to help him,” Kleist said.
After the trucker was airlifted from the accident, many of the motorists waited for several hours in their running cars to shelter themselves from the frigid temperatures Tuesday.
The residual backups likely caused another accident on I-70 later Tuesday afternoon when two tractor-trailers and a car crash in the westbound lanes near the Chestnut Street exit in North Franklin shortly after 4 p.m. An occupant in one of the rigs suffered moderate injuries, state police said, and one lane was closed as crews cleared the wreckage.
State police reported several other crashes Tuesday morning on interstates 70 and 79. There were reports of crashes on I-70 in Fallowfield Township and on I-79 in Amwell and South Strabane townships, including at least one vehicle that overturned, although no serious injuries were reported in those accidents.
Staff writer Kathie O. Warco contributed to this report.