By Karen Martin

Staff reporter

kamartin@elkintribune.com

“I felt something shift and the trailer went one way and I tried to pull it back and it went completely over,” Joe Martin, driver of the truck said. “Thank God I didn’t go over the mountain.

Where the cab of the truck landed there is an opening between the boulders that line part of the highway and the beginning of the guard rail that the truck could have gone through.

State Highway Patrol Trooper Grogan was on the scene collecting evidence for the CVSA, inspection.(Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance).

Martin had picked up a 44,000 pound load of yarn from Magnolia in Sparta and was returning to Charlotte to deliver the freight.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been on this mountain,” Martin said. “I noticed going up how beautiful it was and paid attention to the curves and the grade of the road. I was only traveling about 35 miles an hour due to the road when the load just shifted.”

Martin is a resident of Charlotte and other than a few scrapes he had on his leg from climbing out of the cab after it turned over, he stated that he didn’t think anything else was hurt.

The Cherry Lane volunteer fire department out of Roaring Gap responded to the scene which was called in at 12:45 p.m.

“This is the worst stretch of curves on the mountain,” Jason Long, assistant fire chief said. “We had another accident last week during all the fog that was between a tractor trailer and a car. They collided head-on hurting at least two of the nine people involved.”

Martin is an independent driver who owned his own tractor. He contracted with companies to haul freight.

Trooper Grizzell was the investigating officer for the accident and cited Martin for exceeding a safe speed for road conditions.

“We have temporary signs to place at the top of the mountain to warn drivers of an accident on the mountain and after begging for several years we finally got a sign put up that shows the grade as six percent,” Long said. “We are asking hard to get a permanent sign that we can flash warnings on. Dense fog, icy conditions, speed not to exceed 35 mph for trucks and any other information that may could prevent accidents on this mountain.”

“This curve has so many wrecks because it curls in and then rolls out,” he said. “There are a lot of motorcycle wrecks here also. The government is supposed to rework this road in 2009. I hope it fixes it.”

“Moody’s towing was on site to lift the truck and remove from the scene, but it was not an easy task.

“The weight of the yarn has all fallen to the downed side of the trailer and the resistance of the weight will not allow us to just wench it up,” one of the workers said. “We‘re bringing in a dozer to help lift the underside of the trailer.”

For about an hour, two of Moody’s wreckers worked to lift the trailer, snapping cables and being unsuccessful. When the dozer arrived it was positioned at the rear of the trailer and lifted the trailer from underneath while the cables on the wreckers pulled from the top. Finally, the rig was turned upright.

US 21 was shut down for over two hours while the accident scene was cleared. Both State Road and Traphill volunteer fire departments directed traffic off US 21, out Traphill Road and across to Oklahoma Road for drivers to have access to the portion of US 21 above the accident scene that would allow them to continue on to Sparta.