A flat-bed truck loaded with mulch nearly tipped over as it rounded a sharp turn on Roosevelt Drive in Derby Wednesday afternoon.
There were no injuries.
Firefighters and police were called to the scene at 1:49 p.m. to deal with a tractor-trailer in a “precarious position.”
The incident closed Roosevelt Drive in both directions between Third Street and Cemetery Avenue for about an hour.
The flat-bed truck’s driver said he was heading from New Milford to the Lowe’s in east Derby to make a mulch delivery. He first felt the load shift slightly after crossing the Stevenson Dam on Route 34 from Monroe into Oxford.
He figured he was close to his destination, so kept driving, but slowly, the driver said.
After rounding a turn near the Dew Drop Inn, the mulch bags shifted violently, nearly causing the truck to fall over on its side. The driver was able to pull over onto a wide sidewalk on Roosevelt Drive across from Cemetery Avenue, just above the Housatonic River.
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A crew from Tracy’s Service Station and Garage on Water Street arrived with their own flat-bed truck, fork lift and heavy-duty wrecker.
Mike Tracz Jr. of Tracy’s Garage said the tires on the driver’s side of the truck were off the ground when he arrived.
“The first thing we did was to stabilize the trailer so it wouldn’t roll over,” Tracz said. “Then we stabilized each set of mulch to re-center it.”
The crew did that by hooking the mulch pallets to the wrecker’s winches and pulling them back onto the trailer.
The original thought was all the mulch would have to be offloaded from the disabled truck and then onto a second flat-bed. That would have closed Roosevelt Drive, a busy road to New Haven, for hours.
Derby firefighters and fire police handled motorists confused by the closure.
David Lenart, an assistant chief with the Derby Fire Department, said Tracy’s Garage is a solid outfit.
“They are a good resource, especially when you need heavy equipment,” Lenart said. “It also doesn’t hurt that they’re all members of the fire department and the ambulance corps.”
No tickets were issued as of 3 p.m.
The truck was taken back to Tracy’s on Water Street so the mulch could be further stabilized.