US 411 wreck sends 1 man to hospital
Pickup hits logging truck
A man was taken to an area hospital with severe leg and head injuries Thursday afternoon following a wreck on U.S. 411 between the Chevrolet Silverado he was driving and a logging truck, according to Floyd County police Capt. Gary Conway.
The name of the man in the pickup truck was not available Thursday night, and police on the scene didn’t know which hospital he was taken to. However, the man left the scene in a Redmond Regional Medical Center ambulance.
According to Conway, the Silverado was heading southbound on U.S. 411 near Bagwell Road when it went to pass another vehicle around 2:15 p.m.
William Todd McCurry, 43, of Graham, Alabama, was driving the logging truck, which didn’t have a load, northbound and veered over to the narrow shoulder to try to avoid hitting the Silverado, said Floyd County police officer Matthew Hicks.
Hicks said the Silverado hit the logging truck on the driver’s side and spun into the side of the trailer before traveling down a steep embankment and landing on its side. The driver was alert and conscious when emergency personnel pulled him from the vehicle, he said.
Following impact, the logging truck’s trailer swung into a ditch and was dragged through it, tearing off two axles in the process, Conway said. The logging truck then cut across the southbound lane and came to a stop in a corn field, with the back of the trailer lying across the southbound lane, he said.
The logging truck traveled around 278 feet from the point of impact, Conway said.
McCurry, who was not taken for treatment but banged his knee on the dashboard, said, “It’s horrifying.” He said that once the trailer went into the ditch, he had to speed the truck up to keep it from turning sideways.
“What was I supposed to do,” said McCurry in describing how he had to react to the Silverado pulling into his lane to pass.
Hicks said witnesses told him there was a “good distance” between the Silverado and the van when the man went to pass. Also, the driver of the van told Hicks that she didn’t even know the Silverado was trying to pass.
Both northbound and southbound traffic on U.S. 411 was at a standstill for over an hour, delaying pickup times for some Georgia School for the Deaf students as two buses were caught up in the delay.