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Dec 4, 2008 5:49 pm US/Central
Tired Driver May Be To Blame For Flipped Pig Truck
MAPLE GROVE, Minn. (WCCO) ―
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Pigs escaped from an overturned livestock truck on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008 near the split between Interstates 494 and 694 in Maple Grove, Minn.
MnDOT
Interstate 94 and 494 was as messy as a pigs sty Thursday morning after a truck hauling hogs crashed on the freeway.
Traffic management cameras showed a huge back up after several swine got out of a truck. It took more than four hours for things to get back to normal and officials said they had a hard time getting the pigs back in the pen.
"Something different -- you don't see this everyday," said Captain David Graham with the Minnesota State Patrol.
Around 3 a.m., a truck driver from Canada loss control of his rig -- and pigs!
"The driver originally stated that he blew a tire when he called," said Graham.
The state patrol said that wasn't true and also said road conditions weren't bad.
"Our educated guess at the time is that he dozed off," said Ghram.
Right now they're checking his driving log to be sure he had the required time off the road.
"We were chasing pigs on a freeway for a while," said Graham.
There were about a hundred pigs on the truck and at least 15 got out when it flipped.
"It's not something we generally train for ... but we tried to heard them and get them corralled into a truck," said Graham.
Rounding up the pigs was a big job. Pig farmers from an hour away drove into help -- lassos and all.
"Had some rope -- its just kind of herding and a few things and that was about the best they could do under the circumstances, but that's not our normal duties so we were very happy to have some assistance in that area," said Graham.
Crews had good reason to work quickly.
"There was one that almost caused several different crashes and they can run pretty fast ... but most of them were pretty gentle and mild," said Graham.
The driver of the truck was not hurt. Fifteen pigs had to be put to sleep.
Sonya Goins, Producer
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