Two Dump Trucks Loaded with Limestone Involved in Tuesday Morning Wreck

Two truck drivers, hauling a load of limestone, were involved in a traffic accident Tuesday morning on Highway 70 at Liberty.
Trooper Jimmy Tisdale of the Tennessee Highway Patrol says 28 year old Jamie Norrod of Smithville was driving west in a 2006 Mac dump truck when he rear-ended a 2004 Sterling dump truck, also going west, driven by 51 year old Bobby Ray Taylor of Liberty.
Both Norrod and Taylor had earlier loaded their trucks with limestone from the Rogers Group Company on Highway 53 for a custom delivery to a contractor on Coconut Ridge in Smithville. One man was driving for Rogers Group and the other for the Hillis Group of Sparta.
However as the two trucks were heading east on Highway 70, Taylor began having mechanical problems so he decided to turn around to head back to Rogers Group. To make sure Taylor made it back safely, Norrod also turned around and followed him.
As they got to Liberty, Taylor’s truck began emitting a thick black smoke and it eventually stopped in the highway as the engine quick running. Because of the smoke, Norrod couldn’t see that Taylor’s truck had stopped and he rear-ended it, pushing it forward some 160 feet before the two trucks came to a stop.
Norrod was taken by DeKalb EMS to DeKalb Community Hospital where he was treated and released. Taylor was not injured.
Trooper Tisdale says an environmental crew of Goodlettsville was summoned to the scene to clean up oil and fuel which had spilled out onto the highway from the trucks.
The loads of limestone also had to be dumped and re-loaded onto other trucks.
TDOT closed both westbound lanes of traffic during the investigation and cleanup, forcing motorists in either direction to use the eastbound lanes.
Trooper Tisdale was assisted at the scene by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department, the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department, DeKalb County Emergency Management Coordinator Charlie Parker, and DeKalb EMS.