Sugar beets spilled onto the property of Family Video at 1201 Salzburg Ave. in Monitor Township.

MONITOR TOWNSHIP, MI

— A truck carrying sugar beets tipped over, spilling a part of its load near a heavily traveled intersection in Monitor Township.

Patrick Fader said he was driving a two-compartment beet truck west on Salzburg Avenue and went to turn south onto Euclid Avenue.

"I started coming around that corner and the lead (compartment) just started tipping on me," Fader said. "I've come around that corner a hundred times."

The incident happened at about 8 a.m. on Friday, March 7.

The truck, from D.H.T. Trucking of Reese, was traveling from a Blumfield Township piling station to the Michigan Sugar Co. plant at 2600 S. Euclid Ave. Its front compartment spilled its beets onto the property of Family Video, 1201 Salzburg Ave.

Fader is not seriously injured, though he said he bumped is head and is shaken up.

John Hoffard of Bay City, was drinking coffee with friends at the 7-Eleven store located at 1915 S. Euclid Ave. when the accident took place. He said he was sitting with his back to the intersection, but he said his friend watched the accident happen.

“He saw it going over, said, ‘Oh, Jesus,’ and then it was down," Hoffard said. “I called 911 straight away, but they already had it. Everyone’s stopping, taking pictures.”

Cooper Craddock, an employee at Grand Rental Station, 1109 Salzburg Ave., said he saw the event moments after the truck tipped.

“It slammed right on the ground and slid about a foot,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Craddock added that immediately after the crash, passersby began to get out of their vehicles to assist the driver.

John Blanton, who lives on South Euclid Avenue near the corner of Salzburg and works at Michigan Sugar, said he heard the crash and thought one of his grandchildren had fallen out of bed.

"And then I came out here and saw this giant beet truck had fallen over," Blanton said.

The March 7 incident is the third time a beet truck has tipped since this fall, after similar spills on

and

.

Ray Van Driessche, spokesman for Michigan Sugar Co., noted the high number of loads of beets being shipped through Bay County.

“We have a tremendous volume of beets that are being transferred,” he said. “I think you’d be surprised the thousands and thousands of loads that get transferred. When you have that many commercial loads, there’s always the opportunity for the unexpected to happen.”

Bay City firefighters and Michigan State Police troopers were on the scene.