Hartley, Iowa– A May City man was taken to the hospital after a semi rollover accident near Hartley on Friday, September 22, 2023.
The O’Brien County Sheriff’s Office reports that at about 11:20 a.m., 30-year-old Zachary Espey of May City was driving a 1993 Freightliner semi eastbound on Highway 18, two miles west of Hartley.
The deputy’s report says that it appeared as if the semi was traveling eastbound on 320th Street and was traveling too fast to make a safe turn onto Tyler Avenue. The deputy says he arrived to find a single semi-tractor with a grain trailer overturned on its roof in the east ditch of Tyler Avenue, just north of 320th Street. He says the semi had been carrying DDG (dried distillers grains) that had spilled into the ditch.
According to the deputy’s report, the driver told him that he saw a pickup truck coming up behind him at a high rate of speed which caused him to try to make the turn at a speed too fast for the semi to handle.
The Hartley Ambulance took Espey to Sanford Sheldon Hospital.
The Freightliner semi sustained $50,000 in damages, which was enough to total the vehicle.
Espey was charged with failure to reduce speed to reasonable and proper.
