Driver stable

Driver stable

after crash

By LOU HATTER

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

The tractor-trailer which overturned Sunday night on Route 211 west of Sperryville was towed from the scene early Tuesday morning, while the driver remained in serious condition at Washington Hospital Center’s MedSTAR trauma unit.

According to Trooper H. A. Newlin, who investigated the accident, Michael L. Davis, 28, of Garland, Texas, was travelling east down the mountain from Thornton Gap when he lost control of his 1988 Kenworth tractor-trailer. The truck crossed the road and ran off the westbound shoulder, sliding along the embankment until it turned over onto the driver’s side.

Mr. Davis was pinned in the wreckage for about an hour as medical personnel attempted to free him from the twisted cab of the truck.

One rescuer hung upside down through the passenger’s door into the cab as she immobilized Mr. Davis’s neck to prevent further injury until he could be freed. Two other medics worked toward him from the back of the truck’s sleeper cab, using the “Jaws of Life” to cut the metal which had trapped him.

He was taken to Culpeper Memorial Hospital by Washington’s Advanced Life Support unit and transferred to Washington Hospital Center by the hospital’s MedSTAR med-evac helicopter. Mr. Davis suffered neck and possible internal injuries.

Sarah Dodge, a spokesman with the hospital’s public affairs department, said Tuesday evening that Mr. Davis was expected to be moved from the hospital’s intensive care unit that night.

Route 211 was closed until almost midnight Sunday after fire personnel on the scene suspected hazardousmaterials were being transported in the trailer, which was owned by Stevens Transport Inc. of Mesquite, Texas.

According to Sperryville Fire Chief Greg Wayland,

See WRECK, p. 16