Idaho Falls, ID — A semi-truck accident happened early Thursday morning of this week, just south of Idaho Falls, on I-15. Police said that truck driver Jeffery Mumper, 57, was hospitalized along with another trucker named Vincent Wood after one of their trailers detached.
This was around 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, October 22, near mile marker 114.
Vincent Wood was driving a double-trailer semi-truck south along I-15 that morning when something went wrong and the rear trailer suddenly became detached, falling off and landing in the roadway.
Moments later, Jeffery Mumper, who was driving his own semi-truck south, came upon the scene and wasn’t able to brake in time. His rig crashed into the detached trailer, causing a major accident.
Mumper was sent to a nearby hospital along with Wood, but it’s not clear how bad their injuries were. It appears that the detached trailer had been blocking a good bit of the highway that morning.
Map of the Accident
Commentary:
This is a very unique situation, from a legal standpoint, because many, many different things could have gone wrong here. However, I think the most likely explanation is either A) someone forgot to properly secure the trailer when they attached it or B) there was a faulty trailer hitch that caused the trailer to become detached. Whatever the case, this needs to be investigated much more thoroughly, because an innocent truck driver was hurt while trying to do his job.
Even though there are usually workers’ compensation benefits for injured workers on the job, an accident like this would be considered a “third-party” claim, because the accident was caused by an uninvolved third party — unless the two drivers worked for the same company. That opens up options for injured workers and their families, because workers’ comp benefits are very restrictive, in my opinion. Now, I don’t know much about what happened here, but this is generally how the law would apply.
— Grossman Law Offices
