Dislodged Tires Bounce Over I-79 Median, Kill Driver
Pittsburgh Police are looking for the driver of a truck who lost two tires that bounced over the median on Interstate 79 and crashed into a vehicle, killing a man and injuring two others.
Scott Rice, 53, from Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, died at the scene of the accident at 6:10 a.m, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Rice’s female passenger in the Volkswagen SUV was taken to the hospital with head and arm injuries, although the severity is unknown. Another driver sustained minor injuries after the tires sideswiped his Chevrolet Cobalt.
The incident occurred on Monday morning at approximately 6 a.m. in the southbound lane about a mile south of the Mt. Nebo exit, authorities said.
Police and are now asking for the public’s help to find the driver of the truck, which they believe was either hauling the rimmed tires on a flatbed trailer or lost them from one of its axles.
“We’re not sure, but there’s a good possibility that these tires came off of a tractor-trailer,” Trooper Robin Mungo told the Tribune-Review. “They’re a dual set of tires, and they’re intact on the rim, so you’re talking about 400 pounds.”
Mungo said that driver might not have known the tires escaped from his truck, and asks anyone who may have seen the accident to come forward.
“We do hope that there are some witnesses out there. We anticipate there would have been some traffic at that point in time in the morning so we’re hoping that someone saw that,” Mungo told Action 4 News.
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