Traffic was held up at the corner of North High and Willow streets in Hillsboro for 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon after a commercial tractor-trailer rig belonging to the Pepsi Company became stuck on the curb of the northeast corner of the intersection.
According to witnesses, the truck was attempting a northbound turn onto North High Street at about noon when it became stuck on the curb, impeding northbound traffic on North High Street during lunch hour. Efforts by the driver of the truck to correct its position proved initially unsuccessful.
Officers from the Hillsboro Police Department responded to the scene and helped direct traffic, which was disrupted throughout the duration of the incident.
Representatives from the truck’s corporate owners also responded and were present at the scene.
A tow truck that responded to provide assistance, upon hooking up chains to the stuck vehicle, was after several minutes able to pull the truck off the curb, whereupon the driver was able to resume driving at approximately 1:44 p.m., according to witnesses at the scene
Larry Cadle, who with wife, Pat Lawrence, owns the residence that borders the curb the truck was stuck on for more than an hour, said that, “Willow is a narrow, residential,” street, and that in his opinion, “I assume the driver might have turned that corner a little too sharply,” and as a result, “ended up in the yard. The angle made it too unstable to just drive off, so they finally decided on calling a wrecker with a winch.”
“The police were very helpful and made sure to document everything, and the young Pepsi driver apologized and was nice about the whole situation,” Cadle noted.
Representatives from the Hillsboro Police Department confirmed that a call had come into their offices regarding the semi truck which, according to their report, tried to make a turn at the corner of North High and Willow, but got stuck there instead. The representative explained that part of the reason for the process of clearing the roadway taking a longer than usual time was the lack of availability of tow trucks to respond at the time.
Tow trucks were not available, according to the official report, which said that T&G Towing responded to the scene.
The representative stated that no one was injured and the only damage minimal damage to a tree.
“It did break a tree limb,” police representative said.
Julie Cartaino is a stringer for The Times-Gazette.
