Newtown Tractor Trailer Crash Causes I-84 to Shut Down Tuesday

You know those days when you're driving into work and on your way in you think, "I wonder what traffic we're about to run into today."

I don't know about you, but lately the traffic coming into work has been brutal. Some people say it's "post-pandemic" traffic, but I beg to differ. The traffic has been worse than before the pandemic even happened.

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I have to take I-84 West every morning to get to the radio station. I hop on at exit 11 and usually get off at exit 9. The sign on the highway around exit 10 usually gives me a good estimate about what I'm in for traffic wise. Today, I saw "7 miles 8 minutes" so I thought, perfect! No traffic.

Well I was wrong. All of a sudden, everyone started slowing down and firetrucks jumped on the highway from behind us causing everyone to stop. After the firetrucks made their way down, we still didn't move. I thought, this can't be good. This happened around 8:30 AM.

When I realized we really weren't moving for good, I noticed everyone starting to turn off their cars. That can't be a good sign. We're stuck on the highway for the long run. I turned off my car like everyone around me and waited. I wanted to see what was going on but I had no service on my phone.

Now I'm starting to go into panic mode because I have no idea how long I'm going to be sitting here and I can't get into contact with anyone to tell them where I am. After getting a hold of a coworker after finding some service, we found out there was a tractor trailer accident up ahead.

At 8:28 AM, CT DOT reported a truck crash a quarter mile before exit 9 on I-84 west.

At around 8:54 AM, they added that there was a motor vehicle crash on the highway.

As I sat there for at least an hour, people started going down the embankment in the middle and crossing over to the east side of 84 to go back. I watched at least 10 people do this just around my little section of where I was. My two main concerns were if the people in the accident were okay and how long would I be sitting there.

At around 10:45 AM, we slowly started moving, which I assumed meant they were starting to clean up the accident. CT DOT reported that at 11:09 AM, the accident had been cleared.

After sitting on the shut down highway for two hours, I passed two cars involved in the accident that were already on the tow trucks. An SUV was completely totaled with the air bags deployed, and the front of a tractor trailer was hit as well. And it was right near exit 9.

I looked into it and saw Newtown Hook & Ladder report that they were dispatched along with EMS and Sandy Hook Fire to the scene for a 3-vehicle accident.

A huge thank you to all first responders for cleaning up the accident so well and responding immediately. I hope all parties involved were okay.

If we have any more information regarding the accident, we will be sure to update you.