Beer Truck Crash Closes Will Rogers Turnpike For 7 Hours

The Will Rogers Turnpike near Big Cabin is back open after a terrible crash closed it for more than seven hours Friday.

The chain reaction crash sent several people to the hospital. A Yukon man says he was in right place at the right time and able to avoid the collision.

"It was about 4:30 and we were driving back from New York, and we were trying to make it all in one trip," Tyler Drabek said.

Drabek was driving home to Yukon when he came upon the violent crash on the Will Rogers turnpike early Friday morning.

"It caused the UPS truck that was in front of us to actually slam on his brakes and slide for about 50 feet or so," Drabek said.

OHP says a beer truck was going eastbound near Big Cabin when it left the roadway, over corrected, and slammed through the concrete barrier and hitting two other semi's and an SUV going westbound.

Drabek and his friends were in that lane. They quickly stopped and jumped out of their car.

"We couldn't figure out what was going and what happened," he said. "We saw all the marks and everything and started wondering and started looking and decided that we should probably try and make sure all these people are alright."

Drabek helped locate the victims but finding the driver of the beer truck was difficult, because the semi was torn in several different pieces.

"The trailer was a big distance away from [the cab]," he said. "Next to the cab was all of the wheels just still there and then the engine was still out in the field just still smoking and billowing out smoke." 

The man was eventually found in the cab of the truck and taken by helicopter to a hospital. Drabek says the scene was unlike anything he's ever experienced before and he's thankful he was able to avoid the crash.

"I was sitting there just tearing up, just trying to calm myself down," he said. "My adrenaline was just going. That was God looking out for me I'm pretty sure.

Several people were taken to the hospital. We do not know their conditions at this time.