A semi-truck driver is lucky to be alive after he slammed into a bridge in Kansas with the 55,000-pound excavator he was hauling. Needless to say, the bridge now needs a few repairs.

The crash reportedly occurred around 11 a.m. on the US-75 highway in southern Osage County. The bridge is located less than 10 miles southwest of Melvern, Kansas, and about a mile south of the Melvern Lake Marina.

WIBW News reports that, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol, the 2026 Kenworth tractor-trailer was traveling northbound on US-75 when it hit the bridge. The paramedics transported the 46-year-old driver of the semi, who was lucky to be wearing his seatbelt, to Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka with suspected minor injuries.

Coffey County Emergency Management wrote on Facebook following the accident, “US Highway 75 between the Olivet turn off and the Melvern turn off is down to one lane due to an accident with equipment affecting the overhead bridge. Please be cautious when driving this route.”

The Osage County Sheriff’s Office echoed that report, stating that the South Morrill Road bridge over US-75 will be closed for “an undetermined amount of time.”

According to the Federal Highway Administration, 13,000 to 15,000 vehicle-to-bridge collisions occur annually in the U.S. 

A similar accident occurred in March 2025 in Lordsburg, New Mexico. In that incident, a tractor-trailer driver hit a bridge with another excavator on Interstate 10, destroying it. The bridge in that case also suffered significantly more damage than the one in Kansas.