Police: Driver was intoxicated when he dropped beams across I-91

WALLINGFORD — A New Haven man allegedly was driving under the influence with a minor when he lost control of his tractor-trailer on Interstate 91 and dropped metal debris across the road that took hours to clean up, according to Connecticut State Police.

At about 7 p.m. Wednesday, troopers from the Troop I barracks responded to a collision on I-91 north in the area of Exit 13 in Wallingford.

State police investigators found that a flatbed tractor-trailer truck — driven by Dennis Goncalves Medeiros, 46, of Haven Street in New Haven — was traveling on the highway when it started to swerve across all three lanes.

The truck first hit a metal guardrail on the left median, causing the truck to lose a rear tire, state police said. The trailer then swerved across all three lanes again, according to police, and hit the wire-rope guardrail on the right shoulder.

Metal beams being transported on the truck’s flatbed were scattered across the roadway because of the impact of the crashes with the guardrails, police said.

Troopers shut down the highway to traffic for about two hours while the metal debris was cleared.

Medeiros and a juvenile passenger in the truck reported no injuries, police said. Troopers administered the standard field sobriety tests, which police said Medeiros did not pass. He was taken into custody and brought to Troop I for processing.

He was charged with operating under the influence, failure to maintain lane, risk of injury to a child and first-degree reckless endangerment. He was released on a $1,500 bond and was scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 5.