Logging truck overturns
Jason Shueh/Valley Press The ‘69 Kenworth truck rests tangled and broken in a nearby grassy field. Driver Craig Wheeler said that after the accident he had to crawl ot of the front window.
A red ‘69 Kenworth truck carring logs was heading southbound on Highway 382 when it overturned Monday afternoon at approximately 4:30 p.m knocking down a nearby powerline.
Driver Craig Wheeler from St. Ignatius, age 20, said he was traveling from Nirada to Missoula with a shipment of pulp logs for one of the local mills when he turned a sharp bend at about mile marker three. He said he could feel the weight of load pulling the truck on its side.
“The trailer tire hit the gravel and then the weight of the trailer just pulled me down,” Wheeler said. “I was just freaked out.”
Wheeler's father, Dale Wheeler, was driving in front of his son with another load of logs.
“I looked in my rear view mirror and just saw a cloud of dust,” Dale said. He was glad his son had no major injuries or needed to be taken to the hospital. Log trucking accidents can end fatally if the logs fly toward the driver.
“It would have been worse if the logs would have come forward,” he said.
After the truck came to a stop, Craig said he crawled out of its shattered front window to meet his father and wait for Hot Springs Fire and Rescue and police to arrive.
When Hot Springs Police Chief Jim Matthew and Hot Springs Fire and Rescue came on scene, they found the truck completely on its side. Initial reports over the police scanner suggested the truck had leaked about 17 gallons of diesel fuel into Camas Creek.
Lisa Wheeler, Craig's mother said that the main emotion she felt when she heard the news was absolute terror.
“All I felt was panic because all I heard was that [Craig] had crashed and that he was alive,” she said. Seeing her son all right was a relief. “When I first saw the accident I noticed that Craig was up and I was fine.”
After surveying the truck, Dale said that it appeared to be completely totalled but that the most important thing was that his son was okay. Material losses, he added, weren't important compared to what could have happened to his son.
Matthew said the driver appeared to have lost control around a corner because of the load.