A tractor-trailer truck carrying 6 used cars crashed into a disabled car in the climbing lane of Route 95 near exit 2 at 2:20 p.m. Thursday, sending three people to the hospital, dislodging two cars from the carrier and reducing southbound traffic to one lane for at least four hours.
State police Lt. Brian Casilli, patrol commander of the Hope Valley barracks, said a New Jersey man was in the disabled Toyota in the slow lane for trucks climbing the hill just before exit 2, where there is no breakdown lane. The New Jersey man and the two occupants of the truck, based in Spokane, Wash., were taken to Westerly Hospital with injuries that were apparently not life-threatening.
The tractor-trailer struck the back of the disabled Toyota, Casilli said, causing the car and the truck to careen off the right shoulder and into a ditch, where the tractor-trailer struck a rock face and dislodged two of the cars on the carrier.
Tow companies were still at the site at 6 p.m., Casilli said. "We have one lane closed to let the heavy wreckers work."
He said there were moderate delays southbound between exits 3 and 2, and the Traffic Management Center posted messages on sign boards north of the accident advising motorists to seek alternate routes.
Units:
Engine - 912 and Special Hazards-900 and Cars 901 & 903
