Truck takes unexpected plunge into pond

A crane was needed to extract a Rodgers Landscaping truck after it landed in a pond Tuesday morning at Clear Creek Nursery in Silverdale.

The driver of the truck said he swerved to miss a car coming into his lane when he drove off the 30-foot embankment at a sharp corner, hitting a Clear Creek Stream sign. The 3/4-ton truck was towing a 15-foot trailer filled with landscaping supplies including two large lawnmowers valued at $6,000 each and miscellaneous blowers and trimmers, according to Tracy Rodgers, owner of Rodgers Landscaping and Country Nursery & Gardens.

“I didn’t see it happen, but I definitely heard it,” said Kris Haynes, general manager of Clear Creek Nursery. “It sounded like one of our dump trucks dumping rocks.”

Neither the driver or any nursery employees were injured.

The driver was heading north on Clear Creek Road on his way to drop off a lawnmower when the incident occurred. The driver said he was not speeding around the 45 mph curve and only trying to dodge the oncoming car. After the crane removed the truck out of the pond it was found that the speedometer needle was stuck at 65 mph.

Fortunately for the driver, the only person in the truck, the vehicle didn’t roll and narrowly missed several trees.

“It’s unbelievable, I don’t know how that truck didn’t flip over,” Haynes said.

Since Sean Olmsted has owned the nursery, he has seen five accidents, now six, and three fatalities near that corner on Clear Creek Road.

“There really needs to be a guardrail there,” he said.

Rodgers says a rough estimate of the damage done to the truck and supplies is between $25,000 to $30,000 and may be more if there is damage to the pond which is connected to a larger waterfall. According to Olmsted, it would cost about $50,000 to repair the pond if there is a rip in the rubber liner.

The crane used to hoist the truck out of the pond was provided by A Millican Crane Service Inc. of Kingston. Once placed on solid ground the truck was towed away by Chico Towing.

The loss of their truck has created some problems for the landscaping crew this week, but Rodgers says she is blessed with people who are willing to go the extra mile and work a little harder and feels the real miracle here is that the driver was uninjured.

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