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A tractor-trailer came to rest down an embankment after a rollover crash Tuesday morning on westbound Interstate 70 west of Hagerstown. (By Caleb Calhoun/Mobile Journalist / August 14, 2012) |
A tractor-trailer hauling food from the state prisons south of Hagerstown to the prison complex in Cumberland, Md., rolled over and crashed into a clump of trees Tuesday morning on Interstate 70, leaving the driver trapped inside the vehicle for about an hour, Maryland State Police said.
Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the driver, whose name was not immediately released, was a correctional supply officer.
“My understanding is that his injuries are not life-threatening ... We just don’t know what happened yet,” Vernarelli said.
He said the tractor-trailer was a Maryland Correctional Enterprises vehicle that left the central kitchen in Hagerstown on Tuesday morning. He said the central kitchen supplies food products to state prisons in Western Maryland.
The prisons system has a fleet of trucks that hauls goods to government agencies, nonprofit organizations and from prison to prison, Vernarelli said. The trucks are not used to carry items from the prisons to private businesses.
The accident was reported at about 8:35 a.m.
The right westbound lane and right shoulder of I-70 were closed for several hours near the 22-mile marker, about a mile west of the exit to Md. 63 near Williamsport.
Maryland State Police Trooper 1st Class Travis Brown said the driver was taken by ambulance to Meritus Medical Center.
He said the tractor-trailer went off the right side of the highway, knocked over a row of trees and came to rest on an embankment.
Several trees were severed by the truck, and the trailer was torn open. Dozens of boxes of food could be seen at the crash site.
It took rescue workers an hour to extricate the driver from the wreckage, Brown said.
Troopers said the truck was hauling about 40,000 pounds of food and kitchen supplies.
