Most highways have that one particular spot of the road that is more susceptible to accidents. It doesn’t matter how well-known the tight curve or treacherous stretch is, it still manages to be a frequent crash site. That particular stretch of Ohio 550 – outside Marietta, Ohio, near Goodfellows Park Lake – once again found itself the site of a truck accident last week.
On Tuesday afternoon a tractor-trailer ran off the road and overturned, spilling its contents along the roadside and the embankment. The 2005 Kenworth truck was owned by a landscape supply business out of Medina, Ohio, and had been hauling mulch.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol did not know exactly why the commercial truck went off the road. According to the News and Sentinel, the state patrol believed that as the tractor-trailer rounded the curve it veered off the road, crashed through the eastbound guardrail and rolled over an embankment, spilling the mulch down the hillside. State officials are still investigating the accident.
The condition of the tractor-trailer driver was not immediately known, but he was taken to Marietta Memorial Hospital following the accident where he was hospitalized for his injuries.
One state trooper noted that that particular portion of Ohio 550 is a frequent crash site, “Drivers sometimes drift left of center or run into trouble when attempting to pass other vehicles in a short straight stretch before the curve.”
The eastbound lane of Ohio 550 as closed for several hours while the mulch was loaded on a new truck and the overturned trailer was righted and towed away.
Source: Parkersburg News and Sentinel, Tractor-trailer overturns on Ohio 550, spills mulch, 2/16/11