Many people will be welcoming the expected mild weather after the snowstorm the area received in the middle of the week, which was responsible for numerous accidents throughout the listening area.
Shawano County Sheriff Adam Bieber explains his deputies were busy, as they responded to over 40 accident calls.
“Right as soon as day shift got on, it was run, run, run, crash, to crash, to crash,” Sheriff Bieber explained. “We had a few rollovers. We had a couple of semis jack-knife. A lot of semis trying to climb the ramp and get off of [Highway] 29, slid off the ramp.”
Highway 29 alone was responsible for about half of the calls to the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department. One responding sheriff’s deputy even had a close call while responding to a scene.
“One of our deputies almost got hit by a car,” Bieber said. “He was already at a vehicle that was in a ditch. Someone over-reacted, probably over-braked, and almost slammed into the back of our deputy. Luckily she missed him.”
According to Sheriff Bieber, there were fortunately no serious injuries resulting from the accidents.
Numbers from the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department say that they received a total of 730 phone calls on Wednesday, with 174 of the calls going to the emergency 911 line. For comparison, on the day before, they had responded to 15 accidents.
Outagamie County dispatched police agencies to more than 110 accidents and slide-offs in the county, including one in Kaukauna, where a driver’s vehicle had slid into the guard rail and hung over the edge of Veterans Memorial Bridge. Fortunately crews were able to safely rescue the vehicle and those inside who were trapped.
In Waupaca County, there were an estimated 22 accidents that took place.