Truck driver dies in collision with another truck
ADAMS TWP — Mars-Valencia Road was closed for about nine hours Friday while emergency responders and tow truck operators carefully worked to remove a garbage truck from the building it struck following a collision with another garbage truck that claimed the life of one of the drivers.
Adams Township police said the 53-year-old male driver of a Waste Management garbage truck died as a result of the crash at 441 Mars-Valencia Road near the James Austin Co. He was taken by ambulance to UPMC Passavant Hospital in Cranberry Township.
William Young III, Butler County coroner, late Friday afternoon identified the male driver as David Bortmes.
“A WM truck was involved in a fatal accident this morning in Adams Township. This is a heartbreaking incident and our deepest sympathies go out to those affected, their loved ones and our WM family,” said Waste Management spokesperson Erika Deyarmin Young. “We are working with local authorities in Adams Township and would also like to extend our deepest gratitude to the first responders who attended and assisted at the scene.”
The crash occurred just before 4:30 a.m. and the road remained closed until just before 1:20 p.m.
State police are investigating the collision, but preliminary findings indicate that a Vogel Disposal Service truck was pulling out of Miller Screen & Design, which is adjacent to the damaged building, and the driver was performing a multiple-point turn as a northbound Waste Management truck approached, said Robert Scanlon, assistant township police chief.
The trucks collided, sending the Waste Management truck into a building at 441 Mars-Valencia Road, he said. The building, which appeared to be vacant, had been one of several sites used in the filming of the 1996 movie Kingpin starring Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray.
The Vogel truck came to rest in a gravel lot between the two buildings. Scanlon said the driver of the Vogel truck was not injured. That truck appeared to have only some rear-end damage.
The cab of the Waste Management truck and the front of the building were heavily damaged. The Butler County structural collapse team and firefighters stabilized the damaged front of the building using jack posts and cut the roof of the building before the truck was pulled out.
Two large tow trucks from Turley Truck Services of Cranberry Township spent hours carefully maneuvering the Waste Management truck out of the building and removing the Vogel truck.
A neighbor living across the street said the sound of the crash woke her up, but she didn’t see the collision.
Arlene Wolfe, who works at Carl Strutz & Co., a machine shop across the street from the scene, said the crash took place before anyone arrived for work.
While she was driving to work around 5:50 a.m., she said another employee called her and told to use an alternate route due to the scene.
“What a shame,” Wolfe said.
In addition to the Adams Area Fire District, volunteer fire departments from Callery, Cranberry Township, Middlesex Township, Penn Township, Saxonburg and Zelienople were dispatched to the accident.
