Friday, OCTOBER 24, 2025 |
Photo – Semi truck crashes into Medicine Bow River – Courtesy Wyoming Highway Patrol Facebook page
An allegedly intoxicated driver crashed his semi-truck, loaded with potatoes headed to market, into the Medicine Bow River on Tuesday.
At 4:00 a.m., on Tuesday morning, Wyoming Highway Patrol responded to a vehicle wreck at milepost 258 on Interstate 80, just outside Elk Mountain. When officers arrived on the scene, they discovered that a semi-truck loaded with potatoes had crashed into the Medicine Bow River.
The truck driver, identified as 40-year-old Matthew Berggren of Idaho, was traveling eastbound on I-80 when he crossed the median and entered the river.
Rescue crews managed to successfully remove both, the driver and an unidentified female passenger, from the wreck. While the occupants were being extracted from the truck, rescue crews suspected that Berggren had been using some type of narcotic.
The female passenger was taken by helicopter to a medical facility in Colorado. After being transported to Memorial Hospital of Carbon County for evaluation, Berggren is out on bond after being arrested for driving under the influence of a controlled substance. According to the Wyoming Highway Patrol, Berggren released on bond after an initial hearing in Carbon County Circuit Court.
Crews with High Altitude Towing located a domestic house cat that had been in the truck when the crash occurred. The cat was uninjured and was transported to the Rawlins Rochelle Animal Shelter.
Crews removed the big rig from the Medicine Bow River and the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that the scene was free from contamination.
In a social media post about the incident, Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken asked all county residents and visitors to refrain from operating commercial motor vehicles while using drugs.
