Blanchard Police Department responded to a mutual aid call from Newcastle Police Department at 5:54 p.m. on May 10 for a one-vehicle collision involving a Newcastle Public Schools truck and trailer.
According to a report by Officer Eric Hoover, a 2006 Chevrolet 1500 truck towing lawn equipment was being driven by Richard Matthew Bryen, 52, of Blanchard, and was about 430 feet south of the State Highway 62 and S.E. 37th Street intersection when the incident occurred.
Hoover reports that Bryen was traveling northbound on SH-62 when the truck began to swing in the lane due to the trailer with equipment being hauled being loaded incorrectly. The report states that the driver was unable to recover control of the vehicle and departed the roadway to the left into the center median.
It continues, once off the roadway, the vehicle’s tires dug into the soft ground of the center median, and swung the vehicle around almost 180 degrees and rolled. The truck came to rest on its roof partially on top of the trailer it was hauling. The officer’s report states that Bryen was uninjured, or injury was unknown, at the time of the collision.
Newcastle Police Chief Gary Norman said Blanchard Police was asked to respond to the incident because Newcastle only had one officer on duty, and the NPD officer had responded to a fatality collision which was taking place at the same time. Other officers were at a CLEET graduation.
