Lost furniture leads to crashes on Highway 29

By Jeff Starck • Wausau Daily Herald • November 5, 2010

ROTHSCHILD -- Police still were searching Thursday for a driver who lost a load of furniture Wednesday on Highway 29, causing two crashes and hours of traffic snarls.

The State Patrol received reports from the Marathon County Sheriff's Department and several motorists at about 6:45 p.m. Wednesday that shards of wood and broken glass were strewn across the westbound lanes of Highway 29 near the Business Highway 51 exit in Rothschild.

The driver of a tractor-trailer and a 16-person passenger van each hit mattresses in the roadway, and the two vehicles collided, State Patrol trooper Curt Tomkowiak said Thursday. One of the mattresses became tangled in the tractor-trailer's drive shaft, and the truck had to be towed from the scene, he said.

The driver of a minivan braked abruptly to avoid the stopped tractor-trailer and passenger van in the roadway, and was rear-ended by a pickup, Tomkowiak said.

No one was hurt in the two crashes, police said.

Tomkowiak, who was one of the officers who responded to the scene, said he couldn't identify what other furniture might have fallen on the road because the debris was either obliterated by passing vehicles or had been cleaned up.

Meanwhile, the owner of the mattresses remains unknown. No one who was involved in or witnessed the crash saw the vehicle that lost its load, Tomkowiak said.

Westbound traffic on Highway 29 was stopped or limited to one lane for about two hours Wednesday while the debris and vehicles were cleared away.

Anyone with information about the driver who lost the furniture should call the State Patrol at 715-845-1143.