Tractor-trailers wreck after cow walks on I-55

Traffic has returned to normal on Interstate 55 near Fruitland after Monday morning traffic crashes that involved three tractor-trailers and a cow.

According to Cpl. Jeff McCullough of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the collisions originated at mile marker 106.8 about 11:30 a.m. with a cow that had wandered onto the interstate. The cow, believed to have walked away from Fruitland American Meats, started to interfere with traffic. The highway patrol arrived at the scene and as a safety precaution stopped traffic in the northbound lane. The cow was put down in the median by the troopers before it could cause more trouble, McCullough said.

McCullough said traffic was resuming when a tractor-trailer that was moving too fast crashed into the rear of a tractor-trailer that was in the line of traffic. The impact caused a chain reaction in which the tractor-trailer that had been hit crashed into a tractor-trailer that was in front of it. The tractor-trailer that initiated the collisions jackknifed off the road in the process, McCullough said, and its driver was taken to a local hospital with nonlife threatening injuries.

Pertinent address:

Interstate 55, Fruitland, Mo.