Four water maintenance employees were preparing to patch a driveway on Dixie Highway when a semi, traveling north between Central Avenue and Manchester Road and driven by Craig Withrow hit Trick, then collided with a city dump truck that was parked in a driveway.
The semi and the dump truck landed in a front yard in the 4800 block of Dixie Highway, about 50 feet from the driveway.
Jim Miller, who was working alongside Trick, said he had to jump out of the way when the semi came by the construction zone.
“It was crazy,” Miller said.
Trick, who has been with the city for three years, fractured two cheekbones and his jaw, said Brian Adams, superintendent of the Public Works Department. Adams said Trick, who was treated at Atrium Medical Center, was fortunate to escape more serious injuries.
“An inch here or there and it would have been a lot different,” Adams said. “He could have taken the whole damn crew out.”
Withrow, 44, of Camden, was cited for assured clear distance, according to the Hamilton post of the Ohio Highway State Patrol.
Linda Fisher, who lives in a house near the wreck, said it sounded like “a bomb going off” when the semi smashed into the truck.
Resident Pat Sorrell said she doesn’t understand why the speed fluctuates between 35 and 50 mph along Dixie Highway. She said the stretch of road where she lives has a posted speed limit of 50.
“When they (drivers) see that, they gun it,” she said. “This is not a safe road.”
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