Accident in Carmi Friday Afternoon Leads to Lifeflight

We still don’t know how it happened, but quite a scene unfolded Friday afternoon on the corner of Oak and Industrial in Carmi after the driver of a Barnett Redi Mix truck became trapped following a rollover.  It happened just after 1:20pm and White County Ambulance Director Adam Allen was one of the first on scene.

Chief Jason Carter got on scene and advised that an individual was still pinned inside the truck.  Myself and an ambulance arrived just a minute or so later to begin patient care and extrication.  Made contact with the patient, he was alert and talking to us advising he was trapped under the dash and the steering console.  The cement truck is loaded full of cement…our biggest concern was it being on its side and getting the truck stabilized so it wouldn’t roll over potentially injuring him further or first responders.

The community then came together with Carmi Fire responding as well as individuals from Marshall Electric, Les Wilson, O’Daniel Trucking, Carmi Township, and the City of Carmi with dozers and other heavy equipment to stabilize that vehicle.  At that point, Allen was able to use tools to help get the man out.

Every situation is different.  Using the jaws of life, it’s a hydraulic piece of equipment, that will cut and shear metal, it can spread it apart, it can lift and it has many uses in emergency situations.  In this situation, we used the cutters to gain entry through multiple points of the vehicle and also used a Sawzall to cut the roof to basically fold it over.

From there, the patient was taken to a nearby ambulance while a helicopter was flown in and able to land.  The man was taken to an Evansville hospital with what preliminarily are believed to be non life threatening injuries.

Without jumping too much into it, he was awake, talking to us.  He did complain of injuries, but to what extent I don’t know but at this point, I don’t believe anything to be life threatening.

With the patient secured, attention turned to righting the cement truck on it’s side so normal traffic patterns could return.  Teamwork prevailed and through the use of several pieces of heavy equipment, the cement laden truck was eventually tipped back on it’s wheels.