Illinois State Police troopers from District 3, and firefighters and paramedics from Gurnee and Libertyville responded about 2:26 p.m. Thursday, December 22, 2022 to a report of a crash with injuries on southbound I-94 EAST near Mile Marker 10 near in Gurnee.
Illinois State Police troopers, firefighters and paramedics discovered three semi-trailer trucks on the scene at Mile Marker 9.25 between Washington Street and Grand Avenue. Drivers in two of the trucks were suffering from serious injuries. One driver was down on the ground, and one driver was trapped in his truck. Both drivers were transported to Level 1 Trauma Center Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville.
Police discovered that the driver of a semi-trailer truck and the driver of a passenger vehicle parked on the right shoulder had been in a minor property damage-only crash. The motorists were out of their vehicles when another semi-trailer truck that was passing the crash scene slid off a lane of I-94 into the two vehicles involved in the crash scene, hitting the pedestrian truck driver involved in the first crash. The passing semi-trailer truck then veered left and crashed into the center median wall, trapping the truck driver by a load that shifted forward into the cab. The extrication involving the truck located at the center median by the left lane required about 50 minutes of extrication work as firefighters from Gurnee and Libertyville, and crew members from Ernie’s Wrecker Service worked to free the truck driver.
The driver of the passenger vehicle did not initially report any injuries.
The crash occurred during the middle of a snow storm associated with a Winter Storm Warning from the National Weather Service Chicago. As part of the Winter Storm Warning, drivers were warned that “falling or blowing snow” would “result in white out conditions with zero visibility at times, making travel extremely difficult” and that roads would “likely quickly become ice covered” as temperatures would rapidly fall Thursday afternoon. Observations at the nearest National Weather Service reporting station at Waukegan Regional Airport reported at 1:55 p.m. an air temperature of 16°F and falling, a Wind Chill of 4°F, Winds 10 MPH and gusting to 21 MPH, and snow falling. The most recent above-freezing temperature reading before the crash was 33°F at 10:55 a.m.
Illinois State Police are investigating the crash.
The information in this article is an early report published before any complete summary information was confirmed or released by police authorities.
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