One person died in a tractor-trailer crash Thursday morning on Route 322 in the Potters Mills Gap project area
The one-vehicle crash happened at 7:27 a.m. in the western end of the construction area around the 3000 block of General Potter Highway in Potter Township.
According to Pennsylvania State Police, 61-year-old Samuel Bellaman, of Palmyra, was driving westbound when, for reasons not yet determined, he failed to negotiate a left curve and drove into a guide rail. The truck was on the guide rail for about 500 feet before it collapsed and the vehicle overturned down an embankment about 600 feet east of Bloom Road.
Bellaman died at the scene.
Centre County Coroner Scott Sayers said in a press release that an autopsy revealed no fatal traumatic injuries. The cause of death is ‘pending toxicology and microscopic tissue analysis.’ Those results are expected to take four to six weeks.
Centre Hall and Boalsburg fire companies, Penns Valley and Centre LifeLink EMS and PennDOT responded to the scene, along with state police and the coroner’s office.
The crash resulted in travel delays throughout the day in both directions between Boalsburg and Milroy while recovery operations take place. After the crash recovery, construction crews performed previously scheduled beam setting for a new bridge crossing Potter Run, with periodic traffic stops.
A PennDOT spokesperson said both recovery and beam placement were completed by late afternoon on Thursday and traffic was moving freely.
