The operator of a City of Smithville garbage truck was involved in a wreck with a Dodge Durango around 11:40 a.m. Friday morning on Highway 70 east near Sligo bridge.
Trooper Dewaine Jennings of the Tennessee Highway Patrol says 57 year old Ronnie Walker of Smithville, a city employee, was operating a 1999 freightliner garbage truck going west on Highway 70. Another city employee, 39 year old Jerry Rackley of Smithville, was a passenger in the truck. The two were apparently returning from the landfill where they had dumped a load of garbage.
Meanwhile, 33 year old Allison Long of Sparta was going east on Highway 70 in a 2007 Dodge Durango.
According to Trooper Jennings, Long claims as she was negotiating the curve coming down the hill, she saw the garbage truck in her lane. As she applied her brakes, the Durango slid on the rain slick highway and struck the side of the truck at an angle in the westbound lane. Long’s vehicle came to a final rest in the ditchline facing a rock wall. The truck continued west for a few feet and also went off the road in the ditchline and struck the rock wall.
Walker and Rackley were taken by DeKalb EMS to DeKalb Community Hospital. Long was to have gone to the Cookeville hospital by a private vehicle.
Neither of them were believed to have been seriously injured.
Trooper Jennings says Walker was cited for failure to exercise care.
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