Heavy Towing Team Has Busy Day with 4 Major Accidents
October 18th was an incredibly busy day for the heavy towing division at Mast Brothers! Their first call of the day came in from the Oregon State Police to assist with an overturned truck.
A heavy towing team made their way to the bridge on the Transpacific Highway, just north of North Bend. Once on scene, they were able to see the extent of the damage. The truck had lost control and overturned while driving on the bridge.
Wood chips were scattered everywhere the team looked. The sheer force of the crash caused the trailer to break in two, with part of it hanging precariously over the edge of the bridge. The two lane bridge was closed in both directions and the team needed to work hard to clear it.
With the Coos County Road Department redirecting traffic, the heavy towing team began the recovery process. Over the next 6.5 hours, they gathered all the wood chips (including those that had fallen off the bridge!) and relocated them to a clearing not far from the accident site.
They then used their 60-ton rotator and 35-ton wrecker to slowly upright the tractor trailer. With the tractor trailer upright, they carefully bundled them together and towed them back to the trucking company’s yard.
About one hour into the job, our heavy towing team received another call from Oregon State Police. You can imagine our dispatcher’s confusion when the call was about an accident involving a truck carrying wood chips! In a totally unrelated incident, another wood chip truck was involved in a head-on collision on highway 42!
Mast Brothers dispatched a team to the highway 42 incident. By the end of the day they would receive another two calls to assist after major accidents! It was a busy day but we were proud to work alongside Oregon State Police, the Coos County Sheriff’s Department and the Oregon Department of Transportation to clear all the accident scenes.
Keep up the great work everyone!
Details of Heavy Towing Team Has Busy Day with 4 Major Accidents
A call for a heavy towing and recovery team was received by dispatchers at Mast Brothers. A truck carrying wood chips had overturned on a bridge on the Trans Pacific Highway, just slightly north of North Bend.
A heavy towing team was immediately dispatched to the accident scene with a 60-ton rotator, a 35-ton heavy wrecker, and another recovery truck. The heavy towing team arrived on scene and assessed the situation.
The first thing the team needed to do was clean up the wood chips that were scattered everywhere. The heavy towing team vacuumed the chips on the ground and relocated them, along with the chips still in the trailer, to a safe location.
Once the chips were cleared up, the heavy towing team was able to work on uprighting the tractor trailer. They then used straps and chains to bundle the tractor trailer together in a safe manner. This allowed the heavy towing team to tow both tractor and trailer together.
The Oregon heavy towing team towed the tractor trailer to the trucking company’s nearby yard.