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Courtesy of Kayla Cunningham. There is no person in either vehicles in this photo at the time the picture was taken.
Emergency responders transported a Palatka man to HCA Florida Orange Park Hospital on Friday morning with serious injuries after he was involved in a crash on U.S. 17, according to Florida Highway Patrol.
The law enforcement agency said a tractor-trailer was traveling north in the right lane on U.S. 17 around 8:10 a.m. when the driver of vehicle one intended to make a right turn onto T R Williams Lane in Palatka.
The tractor-trailer reportedly drove past the driveway entrance and began backing south on U.S. 17, still in the right northbound lane. While the tractor-trailer was in the state roadway, a pickup truck, traveling north in the right hand lane on U.S. 17, crashed into the big rig, the release states.
“The front of (the pickup truck) struck the rear of the trailer in tow by (the tractor-trailer) as (the tractor-trailer was stopped in the lane,” a press release from the agency states.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, a 59-year-old man from Miami, was uninjured in the wreck, troopers say, while the pickup truck driver, a 26-year-old Palatka man, was transported to Orange Park Medical Center, according to Highway Patrol.