WALPOLE

Steel Beams Fall on Car in Walpole, Trapping and Seriously Injuring Driver

The crash occurred sometime before noon on School Street near the intersection with Common Street.

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A driver was seriously injured after being trapped in his vehicle after a crash Monday in Walpole, Massachusetts.

Crews needed to use Jaws of Life to free the man after his Lexus was involved in a crash with a truck carrying steel beams.

The crash happened shortly before noon on School Street.

"I was sitting in my van conducting some business when when I heard a big, loud impact," said witness Gilbert James.

The impact ripped off the roof, sent the beams flying off the truck and left the man trapped inside the vehicle.

James raced to the car and recorded cellphone video while emergency crews worked to free the driver.

The truck had just picked up the beams from KW Steel Structures and planned to drive them down to Connecticut. But the flatbed barely made it out of the warehouse's parking lot.

"It's horrible. It's horrible. I hope and pray that the driver's OK," said Harry Webster, KW's general manager.

A driver has been hospitalized after a crash left him trapped in his vehicle.

Webster says the company that bought the beams hired its own truck driver.

“The car had driven under the beams, there are two escorts I don’t know what they saw, I don’t know if they tried to stop him,” he said. 

Police say the beams may have blended in with the gray sky Monday morning, and that the driver may not have seen them until it was too late. 

It’s unclear where the truck’s spotters were at the time. That’s under investigation by Walpole police and the MSP truck team.

Neighbors say they’ve seen other incidents with steel beams at the company in the past, but the company's general manager shot down those accusations. 

“We have a problem with the neighbors that the work can be the noisy and they’re not happy with the noise,” Webster said. 

The truck is registered out on Reading, Pennsylvania.

No charges had been filed late Monday night. An investigation is ongoing.

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