— By Eric Francis

5/7/25

QUECHEE—An out-of-control tractor trailer hauling a load of lumber missed the hard right turn to Route 4 at the bottom of Interstate 89’s northbound off-ramp at Exit 1 first thing Tuesday morning.

Instead of turning, when the large vehicle reached the bottom of the steep and wet hill, it plowed right through a short and muddy stretch of median that was angled back upwards and made a brief “Dukes of Hazzard style” leap over the entrance lane to the northbound on-ramp, a first responder at the scene noted.

The tractor then crashed into a ditch on the opposite side of the pavement, leaving the trailer and several large pallets of lumber it had been hauling, blocking the entrance from Route 4 onto I-89 northbound.

The driver of the rig was not injured and was not impaired, according to Hartford Police and Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles inspectors who arrived to supervise the lengthy efforts to remove the wreckage and reopen the on-ramp, a process that took over seven hours to accomplish.

Hartford Fire officials at the scene said a small amount of diesel fuel spilled into the drainage ditch beside Route 4 from a ruptured saddle tank on the tractor, along with some oil from the rig’s demolished engine.

A crew from Sabil & Sons wrecker service in Hartford removed the large bundles of lumber from the trailer and pumped the remaining diesel from the truck before lifting it back onto the roadway.

Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources was contacted about the spill and was expected to send a contracted cleaning crew to finish the remediation and cleanup efforts that were begun by the fire department.

DMV inspectors on the scene said they were looking into possible explanations for the mishap, including excessive speed for the rainy conditions and confusion on the part of the driver as to the layout of the merger with Route 4, but they said it was too early to tell Tuesday whether any violations or tickets would be issued until their investigation was completed.

In a release later in the day, the DMV pinned the blame on road conditions and speed, writing, “The crash occurred when the operator, Pandit Arjun, 24, of Brantford, Ontario, was traveling too fast while exiting the interstate in a 2020 Kenworth T680 hauling a 2022 Hyundai flatbed trailer. Due to excessive speed and wet road conditions, Arjun was unable to slow the truck down enough to make the corner of the off ramp and lost control of the truck, causing it to jump the median, become airborne, travel across the on ramp, leave the roadway, and collide with a ditch.”

Tuesday morning’s mishap involving a tractor trailer that lost control coming down the northbound off ramp on Interstate 89 Exit 1 onto Route 4 in Quechee ended up shutting down the abutting northbound on ramp for over seven hours.

Both the tractor and the trailer, which was carrying lumber, were totaled in the accident but the driver was not injured.

The driver (in the grey hoodie) watched forlornly throughout the extensive recovery operation which began shortly after the 7 a.m. crash and continued into the early afternoon.

Doug Josler (center) of Sabil & Sons wrecker service operates the “rotator” tow truck to lift the wreckage out of ditch and onto the pavement.

Sparks flew as the Sabil & Sons crew used a circular saw to cut some of the bent metal away from the trailer frame so it could be lifted back up onto the pavement.

Hartford firefighters put an absorbent boom around a storm drain that was in the ditch directly beneath the wrecked truck to contain some of the diesel fuel that leaked from a ruptured saddle tank on the driver’s side of the tractor.