Traffic was backed up on Interstate 94 from St. Michael to Monticello Wednesday night around 9 p.m. after a truck lost control and rolled onto its side, blocking both eastbound lanes in the construction zone.
Cars waited as first responders, including the Minnesota State Patrol and the St. Michael Fire Department, assisted the driver, 28-year-old Justin Gossett of Buffalo. His Dodge Ram hit the guardrail in the eastbound lane and flipped onto its side, according to the MSP report issued Thursday.
Burda Towing, which is on-call for the construction zone, cleared the scene shortly after 9:15 p.m., but traffic had built back for more than five miles due to the crash blocking both lanes through the area.
Gossett was transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries, but the road construction has led to numerous injury accidents and deaths this summer.
An Alberta, Canada woman was the most recent victim of a crash. Her daughter was also hospitalized.
A young mother was killed when her car hit a crane in the construction area in 2014
Crashes even date as far back as last fall, when construction was limited in the two-mile stretch between Rogers’s Highway 101 and St. Michael’s Highway 241 exits.
The good news? The Interstate 94 Coalition – a consortium of government entities, business and chambers of commerce that lobbied for the widening of the interstate from Rogers to St. Michael – will be celebration the (approaching) end of the construction project in about three weeks with officials from the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
A ribbon cutting will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct 13 at the new FedEx distribution facility in Rogers, just east of Cabela’s.