Chocolate Disaster!

What I want to know is where I can get one of those 10 pound chocolate bars.

Rig kisses truck, spilling chocolate onto highway
Interstate 78 is closed for hours after the crash in Greenwich Township between a tractor-trailer and a box truck headed to Hershey.

By Jason A. Kahl
Reading Eagle

Traffic in northern Berks County was tied up for hours Tuesday following an accident involving two trucks that left about 8,000 pounds of chocolate spilled on Interstate 78, state police said.

One of the truckers, Douglas Withers, 32, Lincolnton, N.C., was treated for minor injuries in Lehigh Valley Hospital near Allentown after the 1:30 crash in the westbound lanes of I-78 in Greenwich Township, officials said.

Troopers gave this account:

Withers was driving a tractor-trailer behind a slow-moving box truck driven by Richard A. Coleman, 54, Grantville, when the rig hit the back of Coleman's truck.

Coleman was hauling about 8,000 pounds of chocolate from East Greenville, Montgomery County, to Hershey Foods Corp. in Hershey.

The impact caused the entire load of chocolate, which was in 10-pound bars loaded on pallets, to spill onto the interstate.

The tractor-trailer jack-knifed and one of its fuel tanks split open, spilling about 60 gallons of diesel fuel on the highway and contaminating the chocolate.

Kramer's Towing Service Inc. of Hamburg used a backhoe and dump truck to clean up the chocolate. Firefighters cleaned up the diesel fuel.

A driver with Kramer's said the chocolate still was in the dump truck late Tuesday while workers waited for officials with the state Department of Environmental Protection to tell them how to dispose of it.

Coleman declined medical treatment.

Both truckers wore seat belts.

Coleman told police he had the truck's hazard lights turned on when the accident happened. Withers was cited for following too closely.

The interstate was closed for 31/2 hours, and traffic was detoured onto Old Route 22.

The traffic tie-up extended into Lehigh County and other areas of northern Berks.

Workers from the state Departments of Agriculture and Transportation and the DEP responded to the scene, along with Kutztown firefighters and the Hamburg Ambulance.

Contact reporter Jason A. Kahl at 610-371-5024 or jkahl@readingeagle.com.