Highway 101 crash in SLO County kills 1 when excavator falls off truck onto car
One person was killed in a freak accident Wednesday afternoon when a semi truck collision on Highway 101 in Nipomo sent a piece of heavy machinery tumbling onto a car on the off-ramp below.
“A big-rig vehicle that had an excavator on the trailer made contact with the guardrail,” Cal Fire public affairs officer Adan Orozco told The Tribune at the scene. “The excavator left that trailer, rolled down the embankment onto the off-ramp at Willow Road and it landed on top of the SUV.”
According to a news release Thursday, the CHP said David Edmunson, 62, of Arroyo Grande, was driving a 2014 Peterbilt semi truck on northbound Highway 101 near the Willow Road exit when the vehicle blew out a right front tire and hit the railing at 4:10 p.m.
One northbound lane of Highway 101 was closed at the Willow Road exit in Nipomo while the California Highway Patrol and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office investigated the scene.
In the collision, the construction equipment slipped off the trailer and fell about 30 feet from the highway onto a white 2008 Cadillac Escalade on the Willow Road off-ramp below, killing the driver, a 60-year-old woman from Nipomo.
Orozco said there were no other people in the Escalade.
According to the CHP release, a 2016 Mazda 6 driven by 53-year-old Eliodora Cadenas of Glendale was struck by debris from the excavator, but Cadenas wasn’t injured.
Family members appeared to be on the scene of the crash.
It was unknown Wednesday evening how many other people were involved in the crash.
Orozco said it would take about one to three hours to reopen the Willow Road off-ramp while three heavy tow trucks worked to remove the wreckage.
Reporter Nick Wilson contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 5:19 PM.
