A number of motorists had a close call at a busy intersection of Great Northern Road in Sault Ste. Marie yesterday morning.
A huge steel coil weighing approximately 18,000 kg (39,683 lbs) fell off a transport truck that was turning left on to Greater Northern Road.
Sootoday has five webcams that stream live throughout the day, and their water tower camera captured the incident in the city's northwest on Tuesday morning.
Video shows a truck making a left turn through the intersection and roughly halfway through, the giant steel coil detaches from the truck and rolls into the road. Thankfully, a light post stopped the coil before it struck any vehicles or pedestrians.
Police confirmed that there were no injuries resulting from the runaway coil, and were on-scene directing traffic while things were cleaned up.
Webcam footage of the scene shows a police vehicle in the intersection at the time of the incident and folks have been busy on social media criticizing the officer driving that vehicle.
Sault Ste. Marie Police Services Media Relations Officer, Constable Sonny Spina tells us the officer driving that vehicle was responding to a call for service for a person who was unresponsive.
"The officer did observe this incident happen and took the time to assess the area," said Spina. "He found that there was no further immediate danger as the coil had come to a complete stop against the light pole. The officer also noted that the vehicle that was transporting the coil had pulled to the side of the road and out of traffic and that there was no pedestrian traffic in the area at the time."
Spina went on to say that the officer then used the police radio to transmit the information regarding the coil to the Police Service’s dispatch centre.
The officer then continued to the call for service regarding the unresponsive person, he said. "Another officer was immediately dispatched and arrived at the scene within three minutes."
While city police would not normally release information about calls for service to unresponsive persons, police decided to do so in this case so the public can fully understand what happened, said Spina.
