A person was seriously injured Friday morning in a crash involving a tractor-trailer on I-95 South in Providence, according to Rhode Island State Police. The right and center lanes were blocked near Exit 38 to Route 146 North and Charles Street around 10 a.m., snarling the morning commute before crews cleared the scene roughly an hour and a half later.
State Police confirmed the crash resulted in a serious injury, as reported by WPRI.com. The outlet reported that crews remained on scene for about an hour and a half, and that while the crash has since been cleared, travel along the corridor still appeared to be moving slowly afterward. WLNE-TV (ABC6) was among the outlets reporting on the serious injury Friday as well.
Investigators have not released details about what led up to the collision. Per the same account, State Police said the investigation into Friday's crash remains in its early stages, and no further details about the injured person's condition have been made public.
Not the First Tractor-Trailer Trouble on This Stretch
Friday's crash is at least the second incident in recent memory involving a tractor-trailer on this section of I-95 South in Providence. A separate crash on the highway happened on a Thursday evening, according to a report from Yahoo.com, which detailed how investigators believed a Mazda attempted to abruptly take the Exit 37 off-ramp, hit a guardrail, and spun back out onto the highway into the path of a tractor-trailer.
In that earlier incident, the Mazda driver was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with injuries described as not life-threatening, while the tractor-trailer driver was not hurt, Yahoo.com reported. The two crashes are separate events, but both underscore how quickly conditions can turn dangerous for drivers sharing the highway with large commercial trucks through this part of Providence.
A History of Highway Chaos Involving Big Rigs
Providence's stretch of I-95 has seen other dramatic tractor-trailer incidents in the past. In one case, a tractor-trailer rolled over on I-95 northbound and spilled 18 crushed and compacted cars across the highway, according to a report from Patch. State police said all lanes of I-95 and the Smithfield Avenue access road did not reopen until 7:53 a.m. after crews cleared that wreckage, Patch reported.
For now, the scene near Exit 38 has been cleared, though commuters in the area should expect residual slowdowns as State Police continue looking into what caused the collision.
