Why This Wisconsin Highway Guardrail Ended Up Impaled in an SUV
If you're thinking that having a highway guardrail run right through your vehicle isn't a good thing, you're right. Yet it just happened during a crash in Wisconsin.
The pictures first caught my attention when they were shared on Facebook by a friend of mine who lives in Wisconsin. They show a highway guardrail, the kind you might see along I-90 or Highway-52 here in southeast Minnesota. But this highway guardrail appears to have impaled an SUV.
According to a post on the Facebook page of the Columbia County, Wisconsin Sheriff's Office, It all happened during a single-vehicle crash on Lindsay Road, near State Highway-60 in the town of Lodi, Wisconsin. (Which, according to Google Maps, is a little under three hours east of Rochester, not too far from Madison.)
Think MN's Roads Are Bad? They're Even Worse in This Neighboring State!
The post notes that the driver, who was intoxicated, hit the end of the guardrail while driving their 2003 GMS Sierra around 3:20 pm Saturday, January 1st... and kept going.
The guardrail went through the engine compartment, into the passenger compartment and through the bed of the truck. The passenger was extricated by the Lodi Fire Department and transported by EMS to a hospital with potentially serious injuries.
Yikes.
Can you imagine how fast that SUV must have been traveling to hit the guardrail, and have it pretty much impale the vehicle and come out the end of the SUV?!? The post also noted that the driver was taken to a local hospital and was charged with Operating While Intoxicated 3rd Offense - Causing Injury.
I couldn't find an update on either of their conditions, but I hope they're recovering. And those pictures are another reminder to never drive after you've been drinking! It's a lesson the Hennepin County Sheriff learned firsthand last month, in one of the biggest stories of the year in Minnesota. Keep scrolling to check out some OTHER big stories of 2021.
Listen to Curt St. John in the Morning
weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5