By Sarah Roebuck
Police1
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — An officer with the Fayetteville Police Department was pushed into a sinkhole after an 18-wheeler drove through a barricade, WRAL reports.
A paving company had been working in the area for about a year to install a new underground drainage system. A storm system brought more than four inches of rain to Fayetteville, creating a sinkhole in the construction site.
Officers with the Fayetteville Police Department were called to the area to close off the road and direct traffic away from the sinkhole.
Fayetteville Police Chief Kem Braden said a vehicle was driving too fast for the conditions and struck the officers’ patrol vehicles as they were closing the road, pushing an officer into the hole.
The driver of the semi-truck stayed on the scene. WRAL reports he hit the brakes when he saw the police barricade near the sinkhole, but the tractor-trailer started to slide and hit the patrol vehicle.
Braden said the officer is recovering at home.
The driver was charged with failure to reduce speed and traveling too fast for conditions.