Clean-up continues after a semi truck went off the road Friday night on I-75 in Lexington. Police say the semi-truck driver went off the road and was found dead at the wheel.
Fire officials believe it was sometime Friday night that the semi truck came off the freeway up past a guard rail, then traveled a hundred yards down, landing in a creek bed. They say the truck was carrying 30,000 pounds of plastic pellets.
It was the pellets changing the color of the water in Elk Horn Creek, that lead firefighters two miles upstream to the truck which was otherwise hidden from the view of passers by. Firefighters used the jaws of life to remove the driver from the truck, but it was too late. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Firefighters say no one was around to call for help when the driver went off the road. “There’s a lot of gully’s and culverts and vegetation that, once a motorist gets off the mowed areas and the blacktop, they can be concealed from passing motorists,” says Battalion Chief Joe Best with Lexington Fire Department.
Firefighters believe the plastic pellets are used for injection molding for car parts. They estimate it will take about 2 days to clean up the pellets and diesel fuel from the stream.
Investigators say Elk Horn Creek does not supply drinking water to any local communities and they do not see the spill as posing any immediate environmental threat.
