The truck fell nearly 30 feet onto 22nd Avenue S. Neither the driver or a passenger in the truck were seriously injured.
By Aaron Sharockman
Published December 4, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - A flatbed Pepsi truck careened over an I-275 overpass Sunday afternoon, crashing upside down then catching fire on another busy road 30 feet below.
Miraculously, neither the driver or passenger in the truck was seriously hurt, authorities said. Almost no one could believe it.
Onlookers and emergency workers stared for hours at the overpass above 22nd Avenue S, where two sections of the concrete barrier had been punched out.
They then retraced the truck's fall, where the tires were torn off, where the front of the vehicle had been gutted by flames, and where diet soda cans fizzed on the street.
"They were real lucky," said St. Petersburg Fire Rescue Lt. Arielle Young.
The Florida Highway Patrol did not identify the driver or passenger Sunday, saying they had not yet been interviewed. Both were sent to Bayfront Medical Center with minor injuries, fire and St. Petersburg police officials said.
Steve Hillerson watched the small Pepsi truck swerve twice, then disappear below the overpass from the rear view mirror of his Ford Explorer.
The truck slammed into Hillerson's passenger side shortly before 2 p.m., as the vehicles headed northbound on the interstate. Hillerson said the truck was forced out of the far right lane by a car merging into traffic from the 22nd Avenue S on-ramp.
The Explorer swerved on the highway, but Hillerson, 44, was able to regain control.
The truck, meanwhile, turned hard to the right, then hard to the left, crossing a lane and bulldozing through the overpass barrier wall.
Black smoke started to rise from below within seconds, Hillerson said.
"I thought they were dead," said Hillerson, who lives in St. Petersburg and was driving to Tampa International Aiport to make a 3:15 p.m. flight to Philadelphia.
The truck driver, a man, got out of the truck on his own. The passenger, a woman, was helped out by a bystander. They were not burned.
Young said the frame of the truck bed, not the passenger cabin, took the force of the impact, and both the driver and passenger were wearing seat belts.
"If they land a different way, it's a different scenario, I think," Young said.
The eastbound lanes of 22nd Avenue S were closed much of the afternoon. Traffic on I-275 was interrupted briefly.
"When you see this, it's unbelievable," said Hillerson, looking at the wreck. "How did they make it?"
