It’s every semi driver’s worst nightmare…a shifting load that causes the vehicle to careen out of control and overturn. It happened to Timothy Herron out of Wayland, Michigan early Wednesday morning in Benton Harbor when his big rig flipped while turning onto the Napier Avenue bridge over I-94 shortly after 9am.
Herron tells Benton Township Police that as he maneuvered his livestock truck filled with 130 pigs into a left turn onto the bridge at the exit ramp, the load of pigs shifted within the cattle hauler causing the trailer and the cab attached to overturn, landing partially on the guard rail of the bridge.
Authorities say that approximately 10 of the pigs died as a result of the accident, while the rest were safely off-loaded onto another trailer brought to the scene for transfer.
Herron was also uninjured and managed to climb from his overturned cab which, fortunately for him, landed on the passenger side in the accident.
Benton Township Police were assisted at the scene of the crash by the Benton Township Fire Department, the Michigan Department of Transportation, the Berrien County Road Commission, Michigan State Police, Berrien County Animal Control which has offices a couple hundred yards from the scene of the accident, Zielke’s Towing and the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department.
The scene was finally cleared around 1pm, and the bridge was briefly closed to traffic due to the incident.
