{gallery}11_12_09/rollover{/gallery}Wyoming Department of Transportation employees Jim Thomas and Tory Teter talk with Lovell fire chief Jim Minchow and John Hyde, Big Horn County emergency management coordinator, at the site of a semi- truck roll-over Tuesday on U.S. Highway 14-A in the Big Horn Mountains. Tribune photo by Kara Bacon Texas truck driver Otis Hall, 48, hadn't intended to go up and over the Big Horn Mountains on U.S. 14-A with his full cargo of bagged soda ash.He missed a turn at Casper, then chose the mountain route west, he told the Wyoming Highway Patrol. His unplanned mountain crossing came to a spectacularly bumpy end in his descent when the truck lost its brakes 25 miles east of Lovell Tuesday afternoon.

Hall escaped without serious injury, but the flatbed trailer and truck were not so fortunate. The trailer literally slid off the mountain, and the truck was only spared similar fate when the cab snagged the concrete jersey barrier at the side of the road.

“The only thing that stopped the truck was the cab was upside down, and it hooked onto the barrier,” said Trooper Lanny Hensley of Cody, who investigated.

The accident happened about 1:50 p.m. Tuesday. Tow trucks worked until after dark to clear the truck of the concrete and to pull the trailer to the top of the embankment. Highway 14-A from Burgess Junction to Lovell was closed overnight and was to reopen Wednesday when clean-up was complete.

The stretch of 14-A between Lovell and Burgess Junction still is open to traffic until seasonal closure is final sometime this month.

The truck was owned by J.H. Walker Trucking of Houston, Texas. Hall was treated at North Big Horn Hospital in Lovell and released.

Hensley said heated brakes on the truck and trailer were Hall's undoing on the steep descent.

“Another trooper talked to the driver at the hospital in Lovell,” said Hensley. “He told the trooper that he lost his brakes just prior to that corner so he couldn't slow down. He tried to get to the inside lane on the corner, and the trailer started to track outside the truck. It started to slide, and it tipped over.”

“The trailer skimmed up and over the jersey barrier,” riding on the strewn cargo of 50-pound bags of soda ash on pallets, Hensley said.

Hensley said the front wheels of the truck were “extremely hot” when he arrived at the scene 20 minutes later.

Lovell Fire Department was first to respond to the scene.

“It was lucky that no one was hurt,” said Bob Mangus, Lovell fire captain. “And that no one was coming up the mountain.”

Jim Minchow, fire chief, said the firefighters would have gone through their standard procedures of cutting brake cables, but “the truck was so unstable we shut it off and opted to stay away from it.

“If it went over the hill, we damn sure didn't want to be in it,” he said.

Hensley agreed the truck “was still sliding” after he reached the scene.

“I didn't park below it,” he said. “I didn't want to lose a state car.”

From the point of impact with the jersey barrier, Hensley said the truck slid 230 feet down the road. The set of axles and wheels came off the trailer when it went over the bank and came to rest about 300 feet down the mountain.

Hensley said after talking with the driver's company, he wasn't going to issue any citations to the driver.

“He wasn't doing anything wrong. He was just not familiar with Wyoming roads,” Hensley said.