PEORIA — Commuters were tied up by a hog Monday afternoon after it fell off a truck that was bound for Monmouth, authorities said.

Fire crews responded to a report shortly before 5:30 p.m. about a 600-pound hog that had fallen off a semi truck on Interstate 74, said Peoria Fire Department Battalion Chief Tony Ardis. Peoria police assisted with traffic by shutting down the two right lanes of the westbound portion of the highway until animal control arrived to sedate the animal and remove it, he said.

Passersby on the Monroe Street overpass stopped to gander at the sight as animal control officers administered drugs to sedate the hog.

“I just hate to see him get hurt, poor guy,” said Pam Stevenson, who works on the third floor of a building that borders the east side of the highway.

Stevenson said she and her co-workers could hear the pig squealing from inside her office, and it sounded like screeching tires at first. When she went to a nearby window, she saw the hog limping back and forth around the highway, cars whizzing by, before it rested along the concrete safety barrier.

After 30 years of working Downtown, it’s the strangest thing she’s seen yet, she said.

“You see a lot of interesting things,” she said, “but I’ve never seen a pig on the interstate before.”

For about 90 minutes, police cars and a fire truck blocked traffic as animal control officers attempted to move the hog.

Bridget Domenighini, director of Peoria County Animal Protection Services, said PCAPS frequently receives calls of hogs falling off trucks while in transit, but the drivers usually come back.

“That didn’t happen in this case,” she said.

The extent of the injuries the hog likely sustained after falling off a truck at a high rate of speed forced animal control officers to euthanize it, Domenighini said. Both of its back legs were broken and it was having difficulty breathing, she said.

Watching from the highway overpass, Stevenson placed both hands on the guard fence, her fingers through the wire-mesh metal. A large endloader rolled down the highway and scooped up the beast before dropping it on a flatbed truck. The truck rolled off and emergency crews left the scene, allowing traffic to resume.

“Oh, he must be dead,” Stevenson said, pondering aloud. “What a sad way to end his life.”

Bill Lukitsch can be reached at 686-3194 and blukitsch@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @lukitsbill.