Auburn, IN : Semi driver died after three-vehicle crash on Interstate 69 in Dekalb County on Tuesday, Sep 22, 2015

Interstate 69 is open, more than a half-day after a three-vehicle crash that killed a semi driver early Tuesday.

Around 5 p.m., crews finally removed the wreckage of three semis that collided near milemarker 326 at the C.R. 11-A interchange some 12 hours earlier.

It was around 3:15 a.m. Tuesday that, according to a DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department crash report, a Freightliner Cascadia driven by Phenton Hadley of Gainesville, Florida, was northbound on the interstate when it left the roadway and rolled onto its passenger side.

Behind it, a northbound Freightliner TT hauling cattle and driven by Leonel Rios of Indianapolis slowed and stopped in the highway’s driven lane as a result of the crash.

At that point, a third semi cab came up on the cattle hauler and hit its trailer, forcing it off the roadway and into the eastern ditch.

The semi cab then veered west into the median and caught fire, the sheriff’s department said. Its driver, who was not identified, was killed in the impact.

Responding fire crews quickly put out the flames.

Hadley was seriously injured in the crash. Rios was not injured.

Police on the scene had to euthanize 34 cattle that were injured in the crash, the sheriff’s department said.

The crash closed the highway’s southbound and northbound lanes from mile marker 326 to 329 for several hours, and police directed motorists to get off at S.R. 8 to the north and C.R. 11-A to the south of the crash.

Just before 11 a.m., one northbound lane was reopened, and the southbound lanes were reopened just before that, but the northbound lanes were reclosed while crews cleaned again.

Source:

I-69 in DeKalb County open after early morning fatal crash