SUMMIT COUNTY, Ohio — Two drivers were taken to a hospital after a dump truck crashed into the back of an Ohio Department of Transportation vehicle on a northern Ohio interstate Thursday morning.
Before 7:20 a.m., an ODOT worker was headed to pick up a street sweeper from another location and had pulled his truck over on the way when he noticed trash on the side of the highway.
He was still inside the cab, when a dump truck veered off, crashing without appearing to slow down.
“Here's a guy doing his job…going above and beyond you know,” said District 4 Deputy Gery Noirot during a Thursday afternoon news conference. “Behind me is the result of that accident…” he said, gesturing to a burned-out vehicle.
The force pushed the burning trucks down an embankment near Green's Graybill Road, in the northbound lanes, as other drivers pulled over to help.
The Summit County Sheriff's Office had to extract both drivers to get them to the hospital. Deputies say the dump truck driver's injuries are life-threatening.
“Our highway worker, better yet our brother, a husband, a father and a grandfather has suffered serious injuries. It is nothing short of a miracle that he survived,” said Noirot.
This marks the 82nd ODOT crew that's been struck in 2022, outpacing 2021 which saw 154 such crashes all calendar year.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation.