I-70 Guernsey County Accident Claims One, I-70 Belmont County Truck Fire Snarls Traffic
(ODOT photo)
Traffic was backed up and snarled on I-70 and US 40 in Belmont County Wednesday afternoon due to a truck fire in the eastbound lanes.
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A truck driver died after another trucker drove off the right side of the roadway on Ohio Interstate 70 Monday night near Cambridge.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said they responded to a report of a commercial truck crash on Interstate 70 near milepost 178 around 9:30 pm on Monday in Guernsey County.
Officials say an International box truck driven by Sasa Jokic, 44, of Seattle, WA, was westbound on Interstate 70 while a second vehicle, a 2018 Freightliner, was stopped on the right flat strip of land on the westbound lane.
As the Freightliner driver, Lewis Johnson, 45, of St. Louis, MO, exited the driver’s side of the truck, Jokic drove off of the right side of the roadway hitting the Freightliner and Johnson.
Johnson was pronounced deceased at the scene. Jokic was uninjured.
The Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office and Cambridge Fire/EMS assisted at the scene. Alcohol and drugs are not suspected.
Wednesday afternoon a flurry of social media posts warned motorists of a tractor trailer fire in the eastbound lanes of I-70. For about three hours the roadway was totally closed or with only one lane open for about a three-hour period while fire departments extinguished the fire and the roadway was cleared of debris.
Traffic was diverted to US 40 from the Morristown Interchange to SR 331 at East Richland resulting in a traffic backup often found in urban areas.
The roadway was fully opened later in the evening.
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