Over an hour after the one-vehicle accident truck driver Christopher Mudd of Barry, Ill., was involved in Tuesday morning, he was still shaking his head in disbelief that the truck he had been operating was its side before him on the I-72 interchange east of Hannibal.
“I can’t believe I wrecked a big truck. I’m always so careful,” said Mudd, who was driving a truck filled with rock for Lumley Trucking of Barry Tuesday morning, June 30. “In 11 years I’ve not had so much as a bent bumper.”
Mudd’s mother, Dawn Mudd, arrived on the accident scene not long after emergency responders.
“It’s not the kind of call you ever want to get,” she said.
Dawn Mudd was thankful to find her son with only a wrap on his left elbow.
“I told him he must have a higher purpose in life, so make use of it,” she said, speculating that “higher purpose” might be his 6-year-old son, Austin, better known as “Bo,” according to Christopher Mudd.
Mudd is a third generation truck driver. His grandfather, Tom Mudd, started out driving a milk truck. He later drove for Gully Transportation. Mudd’s father, Tom Mudd Jr., drove a truck for 24 years.
Will Austin follow the family career path?
“I hope not,” said Christopher Mudd, adding, “but he loves big trucks.”
Investigators on the scene suspected that a little too much speed on the sharp curve might have contributed to the accident. Mudd, however, blamed the mishap on a bent metal tab beneath the trailer. He explained that the tab’s purpose is to keep the bucket from moving when the truck enters a curve. Because it was damaged, it allowed the bucket and its contents to shift, throwing the entire rig off balance.
A trooper on the scene did not anticipate citing Mudd for any moving violations.
Traffic was able to creep around the scene of the accident, which occurred shortly before 8 a.m. Two tow trucks from Epley Wrecker Service of Hull, Ill., arrived around 8:30 a.m. Traffic was halted at the accident scene around 9:15 a.m. to allow workers to move their trucks into place and prepare to right the truck.
“We’ll suck it in and flip it over at one time,” said Wally Garner, tow truck driver, as he worked to remove the remaining rocks from the bucket. “This is not the first (truck accident) and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
The truck was righted shortly before 10 a.m.
Another Lumley was brought to the scene to haul away the rocks, some of which rolled approximately 25 yards away.
