A cement mixing truck overturned on the Sterling Highway in Kasilof on Thursday sending the injured driver to the hospital.
Long, dirty grooves in the snow marked where the southbound Best Transit Mix truck narrowly missed a large wooden sign for the Kasilof Community Church as it crossed the northbound lane and overturned in the ditch at Mile 109 of the highway.
Alaska State Troopers identified the driver as David Raines, of Kasilof.
Raines, 54, lost control on a curve due to mechanical issues, according to a trooper report.
Company owner Terry Best was on-scene early Thursday cleaning pieces of debris from the road and laying pads to catch the few fluids leaking from the engine as he photographed the wreckage.
Water spilled from a tank on the truck, but no other fluid were actively leaking into the ground.
Best said the accident happened at about 9:45 a.m. and the driver had broken a few ribs but had no life-threatening injuries. No other vehicles were involved in the accident, though Best said he’d been told a car may have pulled out in front of the truck.
“I haven’t talked to the driver, so I don’t know for sure,” he said.
One Alaska State Trooper remained on-scene taking notes. He asked Best for the truck’s insurance and said he’d likely leave before the truck was towed from the ditch. Best said a winch truck from Kenai-based Weaver Bros., Inc was on standby waiting to pull the wreckage out of the ditch.
“I’ll wait for (The Alaska Department of Transportation) to get here and do their thing before we pull it out,” he said to the trooper.
Best said his Soldotna-based company had experienced a few accidents in the past, but not recently.
“It has been several years,” he said. “We’ve had accidents before. Thirty-two years in business, we’re bound to have accidents.”
He said the accident could have been worse.
“No fatalities, that’s the important part,” Best said. “No other cars, just us.”
