In a situation from most people's dreams, a truck has overturned on a Texas highway, spilling million of dimes across the road.
Videos by Wide Open Country
While driving down the road in Alvord, Texas, the 18-wheeler veered too hard. In an effort to bring the dime carrying truck back under control, the driver over-corrected. This caused the truck to flip, spilling the $80,000 worth of dimes all across the highway.
The truck received considerable damage, enough to lose its load, anyway. The driver survived and was treated for minor injuries alongside his passenger. However, their load of $800,000 worth of dimes was not so lucky.
The lot spilled out, pouring across the highway, resulting in a 14 hour cleanup job.
Emergency Services Rushed To The Dimes Cleanup
It took 14 hours for the emergency services to clean the millions of dimes from the highway. It was probably everyone's priority to get out there and assist. Images show the clean up services using everything from shovels to their own hands to pick them up.
Mayor Caleb Caviness watched the cleanup with some amusement. "The funniest part to me was that they picked up the dimes using the vacuum trucks that are used to suck out sewage and water and stuff like that." If you ever needed to know why it's essential to wash your hands after handling money, that's it.
The temptation to pocket one or two hundred of the pennies must have been huge. Sure, the dimes are pretty worthless on their own, but when faced with a sea of millions on a highway, it'll look like a dragons trove. The emergency services were given the perfect excuse, too.
Earlier in the day, during the cleanup, there had been a huge downpour. It had pushed many of the small dimes around, causing some of them to 'slip away.' The Times reported that any of the dimes not recovered from the highway may have "been washed away by the four inches of rain earlier in the day."
I think that with a job like that, I would make sure at least enough of them 'washed away' to buy a round in the bar that evening.
