Traffic returned to normal with all lanes open in both directions on Interstate 95 in Howard County this afternoon after long backups developed in the morning following a tractor-trailer accident.
Traffic backed up for five miles this morning, and northbound lanes were closed for a time, after the rig swerved off the road, flipped over a bridge wall and plunged 70 feet into an icy ravine of the Middle Patuxent River.
Emergency personnel examine a tractor-trailer that veered off Interstate 95 and fell 70 feet into a ravine in Savage, Md. The 27-year-old driver survived.
(Ricky Carioti - The Washington Post)
|
|
The driver, Dorek Chris Miles, 27, survived the crash, which left his truck belly-up in the ravine. Miles was airlifted to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he is in serious condition, but does not have life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
"This guy is very lucky," said James F. Ports Jr., deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation. "It's just very unusual for someone to fall 70 feet in his vehicle and land upside down and survive."
Highway spokesman Dave Buck said the tractor-trailer sped off the right side of the highway between 9 and 9:15 a.m. Buck said the cause of the accident was still being determined but that the truck went off the highway at the site of an earlier three-car fender-bender that obstructed part of the far left-hand lane and the left shoulder. The highway is four lanes wide and has shoulders on both sides at the spot where the accidents took place, Buck said.
"Where the vehicles are sitting and where the guy went over are right next to each other," Buck said. "He went through the guardrail and there doesn't appear to be any skid marks."
