Copper Canyon Fire and Medical Authority reported the crash occurred about one mile before the runaway ramp along Copper Canyon on I-17. The driver and occupant of a semi-truck traveling at a high rate of speed approaching the runaway truck ramp on Interstate 17 in Camp Verde Wednesday jumped from their vehicle. VVN/Vyto Starinskas
One person was killed in a semi-truck crash along Interstate 17 Wednesday at noon, officials say.
According to Kameron Lee, public information officer for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, a truck tractor transporting a box trailer of garlic was heading northbound on 1-17 traveling down the grade south Camp Verde when the truck at one point lost control of its brakes.
“As the truck approached a curve, the driver and passenger both jumped from the moving truck,” he wrote in an email. “The runaway truck continued for approximately a 1/4 mile before overturning onto its right side in the median.”
The driver sustained non-life threatening injuries while the passenger sustained fatal injuries and died on the scene, Lee said. The passenger has been identified as 22-year-old Johnathon Hardaway of Indianapolis. The driver is a 25-year-old man, also from Indianapolis. He was flown to a local hospital for treatment.
According to Lee, the road was completely blocked initially, but one lane later opened while crews worked to upright the tractor-trailer.
“The entire contents of the trailer had to be removed prior to uprighting the truck,” he said. “The roadway was completely re-opened just before 1 a.m. Thursday.
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