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Truck falls off Pacheco Pass, driver’s story raises eyebrows

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A big rig fell hundreds of feet off of Highway 152 over California’s Pacheco Pass, and after police searched for the missing truck driver for hours, they finally tracked him down to a surprising location.

Truck Driver Missing After Rig Tumbles Down Cliff

According to the Merced Sun-Star, officers from the California Highway Patrol responded to reports of a crash around 4 a.m. yesterday morning on eastbound Highway 152 just east of the Merced County line.

When police arrived on scene, they found that a semi truck had fallen hundreds of feet off of the highway down an embankment.

The truck’s driver, 27 year old Washington-state resident Gurpreet Singh, was missing from the scene. Police feared that he could be underneath the crashed truck.

Missing Driver Found In Sacramento Hours Later

Investigators spent five hours searching the site for Singh, but could not locate him. Finally, CHP says that it was able to track him down — to a location in Sacramento, over 100 miles away from the crash site.

According to CHP Los Banos Officer Shannon Stiers, “The driver said the vehicle broke down and he exited the vehicle.” Singh told CHP that after he’d exited the truck, it somehow started to roll away and wound up overturning and crashing hundreds of feet down the cliff.

Singh told CHP that he was frightened after the incident and that his cousin had come to pick him up after the crash.

No injuries were reported.

The recovery of the truck off of Pacheco Pass caused serious traffic backups in the area as one lane of eastbound Highway 152 was closed most of the day. Stiers said that the truck was finally removed just before 9 p.m.

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