Dump truck driver plummets hundreds of feet into pit when vehicle slips off cliff

A dump truck driver’s body has been recovered after he plummeted hundreds of feet into a water-filled rock quarry pit when his vehicle slipped off the edge of a cliff with him in it.

The accident happened at approximately 2 p.m. on Tuesday at Mulzer Crushed Stone Inc., which is located some 150 miles south of Indianapolis on the border of Indiana and Kentucky, when emergency personnel were contacted to respond to the excavation site.

“A Mulzer employee was operating a dump truck weighing several tons near the edge of the pit when the truck slipped over the edge, dropping several hundred feet into the water,” read a statement from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources released on Wednesday.

Authorities said that their initial search efforts were “hampered by steep, unstable terrain near the pit” and that employees from Mulzer helped them by constructing a temporary path that allowed conservation officers to access the water by boat.

Using sonar, responders were able to locate the truck in the water about 20 to 30 feet below the surface before sending a remote operated vehicle submersible with a camera to assess the situation before sending divers to retrieve the victim.

The body of the dump truck driver was recovered nearly 24 hours later thanks to divers who entered the water and extracted him from the inverted vehicle about 30 feet below the water’s surface shortly before noon on Wednesday, officials confirmed.

Assisting agencies at the scene included the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department, Crawford County Emergency Management Agency, Leavenworth Fire Department, and Indiana State Police.

The victim’s identity is being withheld pending family notification and the investigation into the incident is ongoing.