According to the Daily Press, a pig truck rollover on State Route 10 in Virginia at around 9 Am on September 8 shut down Godwin Boulevard for the morning.
The truck in question was heading northbound on SR 10 when the car in front of him slowed down in order to make a left turn. The truck may have been speeding or following too close and had to run off the road into a ditch on the right side of the highway. The truck struck a power pole before coming to a stop.
According to Suffolk, Virginia, city spokesperson Debbie George, there were 190 pigs on board the tractor-trailer at the time of the truck accident. Some of the pigs were loose after the big rig crash, although George was not informed whether any of the animals were hurt or injured during the crash. All of the animals were eventually found, examined, and recovered. The hogs, from Goldsboro Hog Farms, weighed an average of 265 pounds each.
A recovery team and local veterinarian were called in to the scene, where they helped load the animals onto a second truck, while the Chuckatuck Volunteer Fire Department sprayed the pigs with water to keep them cool until they were recovered onto the second truck. The recovery team consisted of a group from Murphy-Brown, which raises hogs and transports them for the company Smithfield Foods. It is a competitor of Goldsboro Hog Farms.
The animal collection, followed by the truck getting turned upright and removed, took several hours and disturbed traffic flow in the surrounding area. All in all, the road was closed for six hours.
The driver was a Warsaw, North Carolina native, James E. Carver. Police charged him with reckless driving for failing to maintain proper control of his truck while on the road.
The Virginia-Pilot reported that 65 of the pigs were killed and that five hogs escaped. Some of the injured pigs were euthenized by the vet on the scene.
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