Tractor trailer crash kills one, closes Route 209

A 42-year-old man from Ellenville died as a result of a collision between his pickup truck and an oncoming tractor trailer. The driver of the pickup was driving northbound on U.S. Route 209 when he collided with an 18-wheeler in the early morning hours. According to police working with the Ulster County Sheriff's Office, the driver of the pickup truck sustained catastrophic injuries that eventually proved fatal.

After the collision, the tractor-trailer pushed the pickup off of the road before flipping over, allowing an unspecified quantity of diesel fuel and a load of construction debris to spill onto the road. The driver of the 18-wheeler, a 40-year-old man from North Broadway, Yonkers, was reportedly uninjured. The collision, which occurred near the intersection of U.S. 209 and Whitelands Road, also closed the road while workers cleared the mess until the latter half of the day.

A representative for the Ulster County Sheriff's Office claimed that there were reports that an unspecified vehicle possibly was traveling on the wrong side of the road before the accident. The police, however, are still waiting to release details on the specific cause of the accident pending their investigation, and they issued a call asking any witnesses to contact the authorities.

Vehicle accidents that lead to catastrophic injuries or even wrongful deaths can be hard to recover from. Survivors may experience severe mental, emotional and fiscal trauma, but it can be difficult for them to prove who was at fault in a court of law. Accident attorneys may help these individuals with reconstruction and other methods of piecing evidence together in order to seek legal restitution.