TERRELL,TX — A 66-year-old Plano man was identified as the victim in a fatal crash on Interstate 20 Wednesday morning which forced the closure of the highway for 10 hours for an investigation and cleanup.
TERRELL,TX — A 66-year-old Plano man was identified as the victim in a fatal crash on Interstate 20 Wednesday morning which forced the closure of the highway for 10 hours for an investigation and cleanup.
The crash occurred at 10:39 a.m. on eastbound Interstate 20 underneath the Spur 557 overpass and involved one passenger vehicle and four 18-wheelers. Interstate 20 was reopened at 8:45 p.m. after 10 hours of cleanup work to remove the spilled loads of two of the 18-wheelers involved in the crash and fuel from one of the 18-wheelers.
The Terrell Police Department identified 66-year-old William Edwards of Plano, Texas, as the deceased in the crash. Edwards was in the passenger vehicle.
Terrell Police Department Captain A.D. Sansom said a 2016 Kenworth, pulling a load of tomatoes, struck Edwards' vehicle. A 23-year-old New Jersey operated the Kenworth. Sansom says, after striking Edwards' vehicle, the 18-wheeler continued and struck a refrigerated trailer loaded with frozen corn dogs.
Sansom says the Kenworth continued and struck two other 18-wheelers, one of which was an empty tanker.
The collision resulted in the fuel tanks rupturing on the Kenworth as well as the right side of the trailer being peeled off the frame of the trailer — resulting in a partial spill of the trailers' load of tomatoes. Several boxes of corn dogs from the refrigerated truck also spilled onto the highway.
The driver of the Kenworth was interviewed by the Terrell Police Department Criminal Investigations Division (CID) and voluntarily submitted a blood sample for analysis. Sansom says the other parties were also interviewed separately by CID.
Just prior to the wreck, eastbound traffic was backed up due to a FedEx truck fire on eastbound Interstate 20 near mile marker 504 — approximately 7 miles from this crash.
A Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter was requested for aerial photos of the crash scene.
This is a developing story.
