The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a 47-year-old man died after being crushed between two box trucks near Wauconda early Tuesday morning.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office and Wauconda Fire Protection District were called at 12:40 a.m. to Fairfield Road and Route 176 in unincorporated Wauconda for a report of a crash with injuries. Sheriff’s deputies arrived and found a person seriously injured after being pinned between two “box-style trucks,” authorities said.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said that two box trucks, owned by the same refrigeration company, were driving southbound on Fairfield Road north of Route 176. The driver of the front truck, a 47-year-old Elgin man, pulled over to the side of the road to adjust the load in the rear of the truck. The driver of the following truck, a 45-year-old Bloomingdale man, also pulled over to help.
“It appears the 45-year-old man didn’t place his truck in park prior to exiting to assist his co-worker,” Lake County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Christopher Covelli said.
The box truck driven by the 45-year-old Bloomingdale man then rolled into the 47-year-old man as he was standing between the two trucks. The man was seriously injured and transported by ambulance to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville where he was pronounced dead. The other man was not injured in the incident.
An autopsy will be performed by the Lake County Coroner’s Office on Wednesday. The crash remains under investigation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Technical Crash Investigations Unit.