Hog Tractor Trailer Crash Shuts Down I-40 in North Carolina

Staff Writer, Jun 21, 2007

A tractor trailer carrying 95 hogs on it's way to a sausage factory in Tennessee got into an accident and overturned killing 38 hogs.

The accident caused a three-mile close on the westbound stretch of I-40 near Clyde for 11 hours while crews cleared the grisly scene.  Of the 38 hogs that were killed, three of them were euthanized at the scene with a gun due to extensive injuries.

The surviving hogs were loaded into trailers and taken to a private farm until their owner could arrive from the Tabor City area.

According to information released by Haywood County Public Information Coordinator David Teague:

The crash took place about 1:15 a.m. when the tractor-trailer, driven by Stuart Small of Tabor City, collided with a car as both vehicles were traveling westbound near the 26-mile marker.

The tractor-trailer struck the back of the car and the tractor-trailer lost control, striking the guardrail on the right side of the road.

The truck continued for 450 feet before it overturned on its right side and came to a rest.

Small, who owns his own trucking company, said he saw something black lying in the middle of the road moments before the collision.

“I hit it. It cleared my truck and it shot me over to the shoulder of the road. I came back on and I went back to the shoulder, and when I came back out, I hit that car,” Small said. “I don’t know what it was, but I know it cleared the truck.”

He has been charged with reckless driving.

Small said he was taking the hogs from Tabor City to the Jimmy Dean Foods factory in Newbern, Tenn.

In his 30-plus years of driving tractor-trailers, Small said he’s been in an accident while carrying livestock before, but not where so many of his load was killed.