Truck Lands in Little Muddy; driver was swatting bee, then…

A 40-year-old Carbondale man who drives for Southern Illinois Motor Xpress in Cutler said he became distracted swatting a bee in the cab of his truck and rode his semi-tractor trailer truck down an embankment and into the Little Muddy River on Rt. 14 east of Old Du Quoin Monday morning.

The driver was identified as Doryne Clarence Harrington, 40, who was uninjured, climbed out of his truck, waded through between three and four feet of water and was sitting on the Little Muddy River bridge guardrail waiting for first responders to arrive on the scene.

Harrington told the newspaper his tanker truck was empty and that he was returning to the Southern Illinois Motor Xpress truck yard near Cutler when the accident happened.

What happened? "I was swatting at a bee ," said Harrington.

The westbound truck remained upright during he whole ride down the embankment and was still standing on its wheels when it came to rest in the Little Muddy River waters. One state police trooper said, "I've seen a lot of accidents, but never one like this."

The accident happened at 9:37 a.m. Illinois State Police and the Du Quoin Fire Department were among the first to respond.

It was going to take a very large interstate wrecker to pull the truck out of the water, so Illinois State Police put in a call to Emling's Towing out of Pinckneyville. That wrecker service sent two very large wreckers and tied on to the rear of the trailer and pulled it out of the water using the same path the truck took when it went into the water. The work was completed shortly after 12 noon.

Southern Illinois Motor Xpress is a transportation company specializing in dry bulk and commodities hauling. The business is approximately 50 years old.

SIMX headquarters is located on 600 acres near Pyramid State Park in rural Perry County Illinois. SIMX and its business affiliate, Midwest Transload, share this property.

The facility includes a 940 car rail system that is direct served by Union Pacific and Canadian National Railroads. These unique assets gives the company the ability to transload a variety of products from its trucks to the rail system or transversely rail to trucking.