ALVORD, Texas – Crews worked for hours on Tuesday to clean up a truckload of dimes that spilled onto U.S. Highway 287 in Wise County.
What we know:
The Alvord Fire Department confirmed the dimes spilled from an 18-wheeler that overturned on Hwy. 287 near Alvord High School around 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said the driver veered off the roadway, overcorrected and then rolled onto its side.
Roughly $800,000 or 8 million dimes were scattered on the roadway.
The highway was shut down until about 7 p.m. so that crews could recover all the loose change.
The driver and a passenger were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
What we don’t know:
It’s not yet clear why the 18-wheeler was carrying millions of loose dimes.
Images from SKY 4 showed some workers scooping up piles of dirt and coins with a shovel. Other workers used a vacuum cleaner to suck up the coins. One person appeared to be picking up dimes by hand.
There’s no word on where the dimes were headed or if they were all recovered.
The Source: The information in this story comes from the Alvord Fire Department, Texas Department of Public Safety, and SKY 4 video.
