The Pig Hauler Wreck- Video Memory

Pretty much as Stacy narrates as we were arriving at the beginning of the video, it was during the night of a December 1st, I think in 1991. While we were not 'on-call' that night, it was one of quite a few times that a call had come in that required more than one ACO to handle. In this case it was almost everyone, except for two people, that worked the high desert along with one from the low desert, and a Supervisor that lived in the high desert too.

We had been woken up around midnight or so about this big rig crash on Interstate 40 East of Barstow, California. Up and out in about a half hour to the hour and a half away call, we got there that very early and cold morning.

The truck as you will or have already seen was hauling a large load of pigs to a "Farmer John" processing plant in the Los Angeles area. The story we got when we arrived was that about 11 PM the driver had been reaching to pick up some paperwork somewhere in the truck cab and had drifted off the freeway into the steep center area and when he tried to correct and get back on the freeway it was too late and with the weight of the load and the sandy soil on that steep drop the rig overturned. In the wreck many of the pigs were killed instantly, crushed by the weight of all the other loose pigs in the hauler.
Many were injured, many apparently not injured too badly. In the turn over, the double decker trailer broke open so the ones that could and injured also escaped out into the desert and all around the accident. We were also told that the drivers wife had been a sleep in the sleeper compartment. They were both long gone before we got there. There was speculation that considering that the rig had fallen off from the 'fast lane' that maybe the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel because he should have been in the slow lane or the right of the two lanes going each way.

The California Highway Patrol arrived first, the Barstow station was less than a half hour away, and then the calls went out get people out to round up the escapees and deal with the severely injured survivors.
Animal Control, local ranchers with stock trailers, anybody in the rather isolated area were called out.

I guess luckily for the pigs, even though only temporarily, was the drainage tunnel that was the escape route for many pigs so they didn't have to climb up and be on the freeway, they'd just run through the tunnel and out into the open desert.
First thing was get the pigs! Although not taped we took three or four loads of pigs in our truck and then with the two horse trailer to an area that was set up in the East End of Barstow to hold the 'escapees'. It is no longer there, out of business long before I left, but back then there was the "Wild Horse Truck Stop" and there were also horse corrals set up at the time for some rodeo type activities that used to be staged there.
The CHP and a couple of our ACO's had to shoot the gravely injured pigs that were closest to the scene of the accident. Too many injured and too large to use the drugs that we ACO's carried to deal with severely injured or sick small animals like cats and dogs.
It took hours to catch and transport the pigs. I know that more than a couple of pigs never made it to the temporary storage, thrown in the back of pick up tucks or kept in the trailers of the helpers to become, "the other white meat" for them.
The big rig tow trucks that worked all night to get the rig back up finally were successful a little after sun up.

It was a story on the morning radio news on the Barstow "Highway Station" as well as the Victorville country station we used to listen to at the time, no XM satellite radio for a few years to come back then!
Pretty much everyone that had gone out on this call, since we'd already worked the equivalent of a shift, got to go home and get some sleep. Until the next time!