On Thursday, February 18, 2021 at approximately 9:00pm, an Ephrata Police officer observed a jackknifed tractor-trailer on Rt. 222 in the area of the Rt. 322 overpass on the southbound side of the highway. As the officer approached the area on the northbound side, he observed a large box truck collide with another vehicle in the same vicinity as the jackknifed tractor-trailer. While officers responded to get to the southbound lanes of the highway, another tractor-trailer lost control on the icy road and collided with the rear end of a pickup truck which had slowed due to the prior two accidents.
As police worked to stop southbound traffic before the accident scene, a third tractor-trailer (fully loaded car carrier) approaching the slowing traffic was not able to slow quickly enough to stop and resorted to driving off the left side of the southbound lanes and into the center median.
There were no injuries reported to police. Rt. 222 southbound was closed for approximately three hours between the Denver and Ephrata exits.
Dashcam footage of one of the crashes captured by a responding officer can be seen here.
