Nov 18, 2008 11:06 am US/Central
Truck Driver Crushed By 70,000 Pounds Of Rock
MIDLOTHIAN, Ill. (STNG) ―
A 50-year-old truck driver died after he was crushed by the trailer portion of a semi containing 70,000 pounds of rock Monday afternoon in south suburban Midlothian.
David Phillips, of 3755 Rose Manor Terrace in Markham, was pronounced dead at 7:40 p.m. Monday at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn after he was crushed by part of his semi truck at 3932 W. 149th St. in Midlothian, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
Firefighters responded to a concrete company at the 149th Street address at 2:31 p.m. to extricate a driver from the cab of a semi truck, according to Midlothian Fire Dept. Shift Commander Kevin Bewley.
Bewley said the trucker became pinned inside when the trailer portion of the truck apparently accidentally overturned onto the cab while it was being elevated.
"He was unloading a load of rock and somehow the load shifted and tipped [onto the cab] and smashed him inside the cab," Midlothian police Lt. Harold Kaufman said. There were 70,000 pounds of rock on the truck, Kaufman said.
No one else was injured and it took crews about 20-25 minutes to extricate the driver, who was alive at the time, according to Bewley.
"We don't know what caused the load to shift," Kaufman said.
Police will continue to look into the incident, Kaufman said, but he noted that there were no signs of foul play. "It was a tragedy," he said. "It was the way the load shifted."
The concrete delivery company, T.H. Davidson & Co., Inc., is located at the 149th Street address but a spokesman was not immediately available.
(Source: Sun-Times News Group Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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