Truck driver Bruce McAllister of Pine Bluff, AR, wishes he did not have the front-row seat to a grinding crash involving two passenger cars and a truck Saturday afternoon on I-40 just east of the Peavine Rd. exit. The truck involved in the crash was his.
The crash occurred around mid-afternoon in the west lane of I-40 when a black Chevrolet driven by an unidentified driver failed to negotiate a curve, traveled over 100 feet through the median, went airborne a short distance and traveled a bit further traveling east in the west lane before hitting a 2007 Toyota Yaris head-on. The Chevrolet careened off that car and traveled a couple dozen more feet down an embankment before striking a tree and coming to a rest.
The Toyota, which was stopped dead in the right lane by the impact, was then struck in the rear by McAllister's 1999 Peterbilt tractor and trailer.
"Man, I saw him all the way, when he missed the curve," McAllister said after the crash as he surveyed what he estimated to be $10,000 in damage to his tractor trailer rig. "A Hummer had to swerve to miss him. The woman in the white car, there was nothing she could do."
Lorena J. Stephens, 56, of Mt. Juliet, and the driver of the Chevrolet, were taken to Cumberland Medical Center by ambulance.
"He said he didn't know what happened," McAllister said of the driver.
The Toyota received massive damage in the front and the rear but the passenger compartment, where air bags deployed to protect the driver from serious injury.
The report of a head-on crash on I-40 sent emergency ambulance and fire department, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department and Tennessee Highway Patrol rushing to the scene. Trooper Ronnie Hale investigated the cause of the wreck, assisted by Trooper David Jones.
It remains unknown the identity of the driver who investigators said caused the wreck. Traffic flow in the west lane was interrrupted for nearly an hour as emergency crews labored at the scene.
It is unknown if any citations were issued.
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