An overturned box truck on I-65 disrupted traffic much of Tuesday morning and has created a mystery in regard to what the Penske rental truck was hauling.
The truck, traveling northbound on the interstate at 9:39 a.m., overturned into the median at mile marker 58, about 10 miles south of Columbus, police said. The truck was filled with boxes which spilled out the back and on to the ground in the median.
Indiana State Police, Bartholomew County Sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and Jackson County police were called to the accident, where one victim was reportedly found in the southbound lanes of I-65.
The victim was transported from the scene by medical helicopter. Traffic was stopped for some time in the northbound lanes as the accident scene was cleared, but southbound traffic resumed its normal speed about an hour after the accident, police said.
The accident scene is on a part of I-65 that is being reconstructed to add an additional lane on both sides. Police asked an INDOT contractor to move a piece of heavy equipment from near the accident scene to help emergency responders get to the scene more quickly and to allow a wrecker access to the truck.
The Bartholomew County Health Department was sent to the scene during the cleanup after they were notified that the boxes inside the truck appeared to have some sort of food product in quart canning jars in the boxes, but none of the boxes or jars were labeled as to what the substance was.
Health department investigators said they do not know what the food product is, where it originated or what it was planned to be used for. The jars and the food product have been impounded and local health department officials are waiting for direction from the State Department of Health as to what to do next.
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