18-Wheeler Overturns at I-95 On-Ramp Off Palm Coast Parkway

An 18-wheeler loaded with 1.6-ton rolls of plastic overturned on the northbound entrance to I-95 at Palm Coast Parkway at 2:30 this afternoon. The driver survived unscathed, but the crash shut down the on-ramp, forcing anyone needing to get on I-95 to take U.S. 1 to the next intersection.

Roger Lopez, 47, and his colleague Ronato Romero, 46, who was driving another 18-wheeler, had just had lunch at Golden Corral nearby, they say, when they got back on the road. Romero was driving behind Lopez.

When Lopez made the sharp turn off Palm Coast Parkway, “I think it shifted to the side, the load,” Lopez said, causing the truck to overturn. He said he was not speeding, and pointed at the two feet’s distance the truck slid after overturning, saying it would have slid a greater distance had he been speeding.

“It’s my first time in 23 years,” Lopez said of getting in a crash driving trucks. He says he owns the truck, whose load totaled 44,000 pounds.

Romero said the whole thing happened in a flash. He parked his truck a few feet in front of Lopez and ran back to Lopez’s truck. Lopez himself climbed out of the cab “like Spiderman,” Romero said.

Both truckers are from Miami, and had picked up the plastic rolls in Leesburg, for delivery in Blacksburg, Va.

The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Highway Patrol responded, as did, initially, Flagler County Fire Rescue and the Palm Coast Fire Department, though rescuers’ services proved unnecessary. Roger’s Towing was working to tow the truck, but it was looking like an elaborate operation, as the tower had to empty the truck of its rolls of plastic before moving on to righting the vehicle and hauling it away. The northbound entrance to I-95 remained closed past 4:15 p.m., when crews were still emptying the truck of its rolls.