GAMBIER — The driver of a flat bed tractor-trailer escaped serious injury when the truck went off the side of Ohio 229 east of Gambier and plunged into a ravine Monday afternoon.
The cab of the truck was almost buried by the load of lumber, but an Ohio Highway Patrol trooper on the scene said John Wengerd, 52, Millersburg, was able to climb up the hill on a rope once enough lumber had been cleared to open the truck door.
He was taken to Knox Community Hospital to be examined, but troopers said he appeared to have no serious injuries.
Tammy Davis, who lives at the house where the eastbound truck went off the edge of the road, saw the truck plunge into the ravine after scraping a large hickory tree.
“I was in the back room when I heard a rumbling and stepped onto the back deck,” she said.
From there, she saw the truck, which had gone off the road just east of her driveway, plunge into the ravine.
She called 9-1-1 immediately and ran to the edge of the ravine. The ravine was too steep to get down, so she started yelling to see if the driver was conscious.
“He finally answered, but I could barely hear him under all the lumber,” she said.
A former nurse’s aide with first aid training, she knew to keep the man awake, so she kept talking to him until rescuers from College Township Fire Department arrived.
“As long as I could hear him, I knew he was awake and breathing,” she said, adding that he had some blood on his face, but climbed out under his own power.
Wengerd was charged with failure to control.
Contact Chuck Martin
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