Massive 45 Car Pileup Halts Traffic in ‘Largest Wreck’ Midwest Firemen Have Ever Seen

A giant 45 car pileup brought traffic to a dead stop for hours on snowy Interstate 70 in Indiana on Saturday.

Cole Knobbe, an anchor for WTWO 2, a local NBC affiliate in Terra Haute, Indiana, reported the wreck was caused by “slide-offs due to snow and ice.” The huge accident happen about 10 miles outside of Terra Haute.

Pictures from the pileup showed dozens of cars, trucks, and semi-trucks strewn across the snow-filled road, with a handful of drivers getting out of their vehicles to assess the scene.

A spokesperson for the Riley Fire Department in nearby Riley, Indiana told WTWO 2 that it was the “largest wreck” the department had ever responded to.

Local police Sgt. Matt Ames told the station there were “no major injuries to drivers,” and that a number of cops and firemen were on the scene, working to get traffic moving again; around 7:00 p.m. local time — about  six hours after the accident happened — the lanes reopened.

The accident blocked westbound lanes, Knobbe reported, while NBC 5 in Chicago reported there were a number of cars that slid off the road on the eastbound side.

NBC 5 reported a winter weather advisory was issued until 10:00 a.m. on Sunday in Vigo County, where the wreck happened. Snowfall in the area was expected to be between one and four inches, and wind gusts of up to 35 miles per hour were projected.

And in other local news from Thanksgiving weekend, a man who dubbed himself the “Mexican Spiderman” talked about how he used a bowling ball to escape from a mall shooting in the San Francisco Bay Area. Three people were injured in the gang-related attack, but fortunately, like the Indiana accident, there were no deaths; the three victims suffered non-life threatening injuries.

You can watch WTWO 2’s report in the first clip above, and NBC 5’s report — which includes pictures of the crash — in the second clip.

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