Tractor-Trailer Truck Careens Off South Main, Driver Escapes Serious Injury

By Andrew Gorosko

Police are investigating a Monday afternoon accident in which an out-of-control tractor-trailer truck went off South Main Street and then traveled approximately 100 yards off the road, smashing into a concrete telecommunications building and knocking down several trees, before coming to rest atop a cliff that overlooks a ravine carrying the Pootatuck River.

Truck driver Felipe Moderno, 34, of Trumbull was driving a 1999 Freightliner tractor, hauling an empty garbage trailer, southward on South Main Street near its intersection with Bryan Lane about 3:30 pm, when the truck crossed over into the northbound lane and then went off the left side of the road, crashing through several wooden guardposts.

The truck went off the road just south of the United Water Company’s pump house for its public water supply. The truck left the road at the end of a downgrade where the road curves broadly to the right. Instead of negotiating that curve to the right, the truck drove in a straight line, exiting the road.

As it careened off the road, the truck knocked down several sizable trees. It ripped out a tall chain-link security fence that once protected a compact concrete AT&T telecommunications equipment building.

One of the heavy metal stanchions that supported the fencing was upended in the crash and was thrust directly through the truck’s windshield, nearly impaling Moderno, officials said.

After the accident, both Moderno and truck passenger James Holko, 41, no address given, were transported to Danbury Hospital by Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps members where they were treated in the emergency room for injuries and then released, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Equipment that is kept in the AT&T building posed the risk for an explosion on impact, but no explosion occurred, said Botsford Fire Chief Wayne Ciaccia, who supervised firefighters at the scene in frigid conditions. Had the small building taken a direct hit, it may have exploded, the fire chief said.

AT&T officials went to the scene to check for damage. The careening tractor-trailer truck smashed into a corner of the building and destroyed an adjacent furnace.

After firefighters arrived at the accident, they discovered that the truck was leaking diesel fuel and hydraulic fluid, so they called in the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to check the area for contamination.

Frozen ground conditions prevented the fluids from seeping down into the soil where underground fiber-optic cables are buried, Chief Ciaccia said. Relatively small amounts of fluid leaked from the smashed vehicle. The accident occurred in the heart of the town’s Aquifer Protection District (APD), an environmentally sensitive area above the Pootatuck Aquifer.

After arriving, firefighters used hydraulic prying tools to remove the passenger-side door from the truck’s cab, freeing the two trapped men from the vehicle, Chief Ciaccia said.

Chief Ciaccia said Moderno was very fortunate that he was not impaled by the fence stanchion that punctured the truck’s windshield. The heavy metal pipe came within inches of striking Moderno’s face, the fire chief said.

When the out-of-control truck hit some large trees atop the precipice, it finally stopped moving. The front end of the truck’s cab was left hanging over the cliff’s edge. The truck came to rest near Homestead Lane.

“He was real lucky,” Chief Ciaccia said of the potential for more serious damage in the accident.

An environmental cleanup crew went to the accident site to pump out the tractor-trailer truck’s fuel tanks before the vehicle was removed from the scene, Chief Ciaccia said.

Wrecker crews removed the heavily damaged truck and trailer from the scene by about 7 pm.

It is unclear why the truck ran off the road. Police said they are investigating the cause of the crash.