One man is dead after a pedestrian bridge in Detroit collapsed onto Southfield Freeway. The collapse happened after the bridge was struck by an oversized truck. Investigators say there were no structural issues with the bridge.
Nobody was on the bridge or under the bridge at the time of the accident. However the driver of the truck, who’s described as an African-American male in his late 40s, was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Due to heavy traffic in the area, it took emergency crews around 35 minutes to arrive.
“We received a call that some type of waste hauler had hit the pedestrian overpass with its boom up,” Michigan Department of Transportation spokeswoman Diane Cross said. “It struck the overpass and knocked out the entire structure. No one was on the overpass or driving beneath it at the time.”
The twisted form of the pedestrian overpass was stretched across both directions of the Southfield freeway. It was scheduled to be removed as soon as the investigation was complete.
