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Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2002 - 7:52 p.m. The evil exit ramp claimed another victim today. What, I haven�t written about the evil exit ramp before? Wait a sec- I will check my archives and see���� You�re right- I haven�t mentioned it before today. Well then, here�s the story: We have one complete cloverleaf exit in our county. It is located just south of our lame-o mall, at the intersection of Interstate highway 27 and State highway 15. Just north of Mohall, of course. Anyway, since this is a perfect cloverleaf, it consists of four entrance ramps (located on the outsides), and four exit ramps forming the cloverleaf. This arrangement works well, except for one thing: anybody with a top-heavy vehicle (semi or van) needs to slow way down on the entrance ramps. If they don�t, bad things can happen. Today, a bad thing happened. A semi-trailer hauling piglets (550 in all) entered the south bound to westbound ramp at far too high a speed. The ramp is posted at 30 mph for a reason. His speed was more likely around 45 or 50. It happens because people entering the Interstate are leaving a road with a 50 mph speed limit, and the road they are entering has a 65 mph limit. They don�t want to slow down on the ramp, because they might be another 15 seconds later arriving at their destination. This truck didn�t make it through the curve. When the weight shifted on his truck (that would be the 550 piglets weighing about 25 pounds each), the truck laid over on its side, causing the little piggies to fall on top of each other. This caused them to start panicking, which meant the immediate evacuation of their bowels. Sorry. I know that�s not a pretty description, but it�s a fact. Rescue personnel arrived in just minutes, and we received a call asking for us to be on standby in case our help was needed. The city of Mohall sent a bunch of their highway workers to the scene, and they started the filthy task of helping the living piglets off of the on-its-side trailer and into several cattle trailers provided by local farmers. The whole process went pretty smoothly, with only a couple of the little porkers escaping from the fencing they hastily set up between the two carriers. A local fireman captured these, and the local ABC station captured the chase on video for all to see. Only a small number of the porcine babies (hey, I�m running out of pig-related words here) died from the accident. It would have been much worse if the trailer had been carrying market-sized hogs. That happened once (during an ice storm) back in the late 1980�s. All of the hogs died from either suffocation or shock. I didn�t go to the scene (it happened in another part of the county, and I was fighting my own icing problems), but the workers who responded to the scene said it was the most horrific thing they had ever come up against in the course of their job. Again, I�m not happy to relay this sad story. I guess one reason why I wrote about it was to remind y�all that speed limits are posted on ramps for a good reason. That, and something like this doesn�t happen everyday���. This next story should make you fell a little better��� Weird state story #2: We had another attenuator truck smacked in the rear yesterday. This time it happened in another county in our district, approximately 120 miles south of the accident last week. Here is the part that makes it weird: The man who was flagging last week and had to dive for the ditch when the collision happened then was working in front of this attenuator yesterday! What are the odds on that? He was installing a sign on a metal post when the driver of the semi lost control of his truck (he said he doesn�t know how, but another employee said his head was below the dash, reaching for something). Just before impact, his coworkers yelled at him to run, which he did. The truck he was standing in front of ended up sitting over the spot he had just left. So, this lucky man has dodged metal death twice in less than a week. I don�t know about you, but I don�t think I would want to be standing by him near the pavement for a long time�� Not that I am really that concerned about stats and such, but I noticed today that I have had 3 people (out of 53-about 6% of my readers?) drop me from their �Favorites� list in the past 10 days or so. I know that several of you stop by and read my writings every day. I�m glad you do, and that you think what I put here is worth reading (most of the time, anyway). I just wonder if it was something I wrote that offended these former readers. I might go back and check what I wrote last week. Today�s mentioning of animal deaths won�t help add any new people to the fav�s list, I�m afraid��.
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