While I don’t usually post about stuff like this, I just watched the footage (Firefox users won’t be able to see the footage - stupid Windows Media Player) from CBS2 Chicago and found it amazing that nobody was killed. The truck went off the ramp leading to 53-N, crossing a snow-covered section of grass, then across three lanes of northbound traffic, hitting the median wall. The momentum of the truck was great enough at this point to have brought the trailer and the cab over the median wall, leaving behind their wheels.
As Kris Habermehl reported from Chopper 2, while the wheels on the trailer are designed to move forward and back to adjust for cargo, they are not designed to be easily removed from the rails in which they sit underneath the trailer. Certainly the cab is not designed to be sheared away from its wheels in such a violent manner, either.
In the southbound lanes, a single vehicle driven by an unidentified woman was struck by the portions of the truck crossing the median. The woman was extracted from her vehicle by the Itasca Fire Department, then air lifted to Loyola University Medical Center. The truck driver was extracted from his cab by the Elk Grove Fire Department and brought to Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital.
While CBS2 Chicago’s website reports that one person was killed, I can’t get any confirmation from other local news outlets that anyone was killed in this accident.
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