Man cut from car after crash on Danville Expressway

A Duke Life Flight helicopter lifted a man from the U.S. 29 Danville Expressway on Sunday afternoon after an extrication team cut him out from a flipped pickup truck.

According to Lt. M.T. White Jr. with the Danville Police Department, the man was traveling southbound on the expressway just after 1 p.m. when he ran off the road and into the left guard rail, flipping his white 2000 Mazda pickup truck just south of Eagle Springs Road. Lt. White could not release the driver’s name or condition, but said he was transported to Duke University Medical Center.

“He’s moving,” said an off-duty volunteer EMT as he watched from across the median. “That’s a good thing. That’s always a good thing.”

White said emergency workers had to cut the driver’s side door off the truck to reach the driver, whose leg was pinned under the dashboard. There was no one else in the truck and no other cars were involved in the crash.

“He was talking and responding,” White said of the driver’s condition when the team pulled him from the truck.

White said officers had not yet determined the cause of the crash and whether alcohol or a medical condition may have been a factor. The driver was wearing a seatbelt.

Southbound traffic on U.S. 29 was stopped for nearly two hours as fire and rescue teams worked to get the man out of the flipped truck. Traffic backed up nearly a mile to the Little Creek Road overpass.

Northbound traffic was also blocked for about 30 minutes while the helicopter landed and took off from the southbound lanes.