Trucker in fatal crash may have suffered heart attack

Final autopsy results are pending, but authorities suspect the Texas trucker killed in an accident last week on Interstate 55 suffered a medical crisis just before his tractor-trailer ran off the road.

James D. Holloway, 56, of Corsicana, Texas, died July 17 when the tractor-trailer he was driving crashed through a guardrail, went down an embankment and caught fire in a wooded area just south of mile marker 97.2 on southbound I-55, police reported.

"It appears he had a heart attack, but we won't know for a few more days," Cape Girardeau County Coroner John Clifton said Tuesday.

Holloway, known to fellow truckers by the handle "Possum," had been driving big trucks for almost 30 years, his daughter, Stacy Pyeatt, told the Southeast Missourian in an email the day after the crash.

Clifton said last week that family members told him Holloway had taken a long nap shortly before the accident, so fatigue should not have been a factor.

Police closed I-55 immediately after the crash. Both southbound lanes remained closed for more than an hour, and the right lane was closed well into the evening as emergency workers moved the tractor-trailer back onto the roadway.

The truck Holloway was driving was pulling a FedEx truck with placards on it warning of flammable materials. But Darin Hickey, public information officer for the Cape Girardeau Police Department, said the containers on the FedEx truck were empty and played no role in the fire.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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