FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. – A run-away logging truck coming down the Highway 95 dugway T-boned a car at the intersection with Highway 35. Both drivers were trapped inside their vehicle and had to be cut out. The driver of the car, Stephanie Foster, 46, of Buffalo City, was airlifted 40 miles in critical condition to Gundersen hospital in LaCrosse, a Level 2 trauma center. The trucker, Richard Kurtzhals, 57, of Durand, was transported seven miles to the Winona hospital and then transferred because of the seriousness of his injuries to Gundersen in LaCrosse. The accident was about 11:15 a.m. Highway 35, the primary Wisconsin route connecting LaCrosse and the Twin Cities and nto Superior, was impassable most of the day. Traffic was channeled on a 14-mile ridgetop detour on County Road YY and State Highway 88.
Pulled from backed-up Mississippi pool. The Foster car, a 2000 Ford Explorer, was shoved through a concrete barrier into a swampy drainage area few yards short of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks along the Mississippi River. Images: Buffalo County Sheriff’s Office
What happened
A semi-truck hauling logs apparently lost brakes on the four-mile 6% grade down a ravine into Fountain City. The road terminates just short of the Mississippi River. There is a stop sign for a 90-degree turn north onto Highway 35 or the other direction for a 90-degree turn south onto Highway 35. It’s been estimated with earlier run-away trucks on the Dugway that they’re going 50 to 60 mph at the stop sign. This truck hit a northbound car, headed toward Buffalo City, in a 30-mph zone. The truck pushed the car t on its side through a concrete barrier and into a shallow swampy pit. The log truck, propelled by its own momentum, slid down an embankment on its side and wedged into a bridge under a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad at the edge of the Mississippi River.
The Dugway
To locals the perilous section of Highway 95 coming down from bluff-top farms is called the Dugway. Literally it was dug into an otherwise impassable ravine as a short-cut to Arcadia. There are tight 20-mph turns. Once in Fountain City the curves ease into a milder slope and a five-block straight-away on which a run-away truck, without brakes, accelerates even more until, unable to make either of he 90-degree turns, it crosses Highway 35 into a shallow swampy pit whose depth fluctuates seasonally with Mississippi River levels.
Next Level. Investigators said the truck belonged to Next Level Excavation, a heavy-equipment demolition and hauilng company based in Mondovi. The white truck here, although not the one in the Fountain City accident, is part of Next Level’s fleet.
