J.C. Derrick
A semi’s blowout led to a fiery accident that blocked all northbound lanes on I-75 Saturday morning.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), a semi truck was traveling north near Lake City—just north of the U.S. Highway 90 exit—when a steering tire failed. The semi swerved to the left and into the median guardrail, crushing more than 200 feet of the guardrail.
The truck then turned on its side, caught fire, and came to rest blocking all northbound lanes of traffic, FHP reported.
Miraculously, the 44-year-old driver, a male from Hialeah, Fla., suffered only minor injuries. He was wearing a seatbelt when the blowout occurred.
A sedan carrying two 48-year-old men from Port St. Lucie hit the back of the semi’s trailer and careened into a grassy ditch, but neither was injured. They were also wearing seatbelts.
FHP spokesman Patrick Riordan said all interstate lanes reopened at 9:40 a.m., about four hours after the accident occurred.
Around the same time as the I-75 incident, a separate Columbia County incident left a Lake City man dead. For unknown reasons, the man was driving a white sedan north in the southbound lanes of U.S. Highway 441 when he slammed into an oncoming semi truck.
First responders pronounced the driver dead at the scene. The driver of the semi, a 31-year-old woman from Lake City, was uninjured.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated.