Tractor-trailer tips onto side while driving on Tecumseh curves


photo courtesy of Tecumseh VFD The Tecumseh Volunteer Fire Department posted this photo, along with several others, that were taken by crews working to clean up a semi-truck and trailer crash on Highway 160 at the Tecumseh curves during the early morning hours of Monday, Sept. 13.

A tractor-trailer hauling 73 tons of cotton seed hulls turned over on Highway 160 at the Tecumseh curves around 1:30 a.m. Monday. Tecumseh Volunteer Fire Department assistant fire chief J.B. Duke said the truck driver, an acquaintance of his, called and told him the truck had flipped onto its side as it was headed westbound, up the Tecumseh hill. 

“We were just coming back from another crash where a guy down from Arkansas turned his car over on its top on Smokey Road, and then I got the call about this one,” Duke said Monday afternoon. 

Duke informed the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department of the semi crash, and a dispatcher radioed the Tecumseh VFD, Ozark County Sheriff’s Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol and Ozark County Ambulance to dispatch them to the scene. 

Duke said neither driver in the two crashes was injured, but the tractor trailer cleanup did take some time. Midway Towing from Pomona came to tow the truck and trailer away, and Duke and fellow TVFD firefighters Jonathan and Nathanael Winrod, who also own Winrod Construction, used their large trucks and equipment to help clean up and haul away the cotton seed hulls.

The Ozark County Sheriff’s report shows that responders left the scene of the crash just before 5 a.m. Monday, three and a half hours after the call came in. 

“Well, the roadway is wide enough for the truck and trailer to lie sideways and still get around it,” Duke said, referring to the current construction project to widen the curvy section of Highway 160. “I’m not sure if it’s easier on those driving it, but it was definitely easier on us cleaning it up.”

Ozark County Times

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