BETHALTO — A contract employee working on a state-owned snow plow became injured when the truck's tire exploded.
While the employee worked at the Illinois Department of Transportation yard located on Illinois Route 111, the vehicle's brakes caught fire and caused one of its tires to blowup, Bethalto Fire Chief Richard Mersinger said Friday afternoon. The unidentified service technician doing the contract work for IDOT on the truck went by ambulance to Alton Memorial Hospital; he sustained minor injuries. The salt-filled vehicle remained out of service the entire day.
Bethalto firefighters pulled the IDOT truck out of the maintenance building and hosed down the area near the tire, extinguishing the fire once the vehicle was out of IDOT's garage. Mersinger said the truck was not running while the technician worked underneath the vehicle and does not know how the brakes overheated.
The injured man stood up and walked on his own at the scene, where he received treatment, he noted.
He said the truck sustained very minimal damage.
Jill Moon can be contacted at 618-463-2552 or Twitter @jill_moon.