Driver flown to hospital after colliding with 18-wheeler

The eastbound lanes of Interstate 10 were closed for about two hours Tuesday night after a white Mercedes crashed into the trailer of an 18-wheeler just east of State Highway 97 at about 7:30 p.m.

Firefighters from Ottine, Waelder and Gonzales fire departments had to carefully dismantle the car to extricate the driver and prevent the trailer from further crushing the driver of the passenger car. He was flown to a San Antonio hospital, but the DPS trooper investigating the crash had not released the driver’s identity as of press time.

The trooper did say witnesses told him the driver had been driving at a high rate of speed and passing other vehicles while eastbound on the Interstate when he seemed to lose control of the vehicle and attempted to move back in the right lane and collided with the trailer of the 18-wheeler.

Tafsir Diop of Oklahoma, the driver of the tractor-trailer involved in the crash, said it took him about a half mile to come to a stop with the car wedged under his trailer.

Firefighters used a jack to take some of the weight of the trailer off the car, then dismantled the car using the Jaws of Life and other extrication tools.

“At first I was afraid the car was on fire,” Diop said. “I’m just happy he was moving around when I first saw him. I didn’t want to be involved in something where someone loses their life.”

Diop’s truck was carrying a 44,000-load of plastic. He said at first he was disappointed in the load he was carrying on this trip. “But now I see that there was a purpose in this.”

Karen Head of Houston was in an empty 18-wheeler right behind the involved vehicles.

“Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get stopped either,” she said.  “Glass was flying up and hitting me everywhere,” she said. “I used to work in the health care field, and I was really afraid this man wasn’t in one piece, but once I saw his arm moving I got out and kept talking to him, to keep him with us until an ambulance got here.”

“I was thinking about going back to health care, but after tonight I think I will stick with driving the truck,” Head said.

Once the driver was removed from the wreckage and en route to the hospital, DPS and sheriff’s deputies began working to reopen IH-10, but they found that several motorists had become stranded in the congested traffic.

One carload of travelers was unable to restart their car to resume their travels, and could not speak English, but they were able to locate a Spanish-speaking rescuer just two car-lengths ahead with jumper cables and they were quickly on their way.

Troopers called additional wreckers for a couple of other stranded motorists who tried to find a short-cut through ditches to bypass the congested traffic and became stuck. At least one motorist suffered a flat tire when trying to find an off-road alternate route.

The off-roading route also resulted in another minor collision, according to police radio conversations related to the crash.

Normal traffic resumed on IH-10 at about 10:30 p.m.