Hull Street Amtrak Bridge Violent Crash

A driver died Tuesday after a severe collision with the Hull Street Amtrak bridge. The driver of a garbage container truck, who may have been unsuspecting that the truck's boom was in the upright position.

According to the police, admittedly, the low bridge is being hit by trucks or trailers at least once a year, but this particular accident was the first to result in a fatality,

The driver was a 39 year old Hartford resident named Marvin Matos. He worked for Dainty Rubbish Services of Middletown, and it was speculated to have delivered a refuse container to a Main Street business not long before the accident.

The truck loads and unloads its containers by raising a long boom and sliding them off the back of the truck. Notwithstanding, the boom sometimes would be in the lowered position while the vehicle was underway. Police said witnesses recounted seeing the empty truck's boom in a raised position while traveling down Main Street.

Police Major John Santry said, “We don’t know if there was an underlying medical condition, or if there was a mechanical problem with the boom, or if he forgot to lower it.”

According to Santry, the vehicular crash which occurred at 1:59 p.m. was the most violent crash on the bridge, which of more than 30 he has seen in his 26 years on Clinton’s police force.

The truck turned onto Hull Street from Main Street to continue north on Route 81. It is considered to have hit the bridge at great speed, police said. A police officer working a nearby traffic detail was promptly on the scene to provide aid, added by the police.

The impact was so violent that the Matos’s seat was collapsed into the dashboard. The Clinton Volunteer Fire Department had to extricate the operator from the vehicle. The police and fire officials were notified of his death at 3:10 p.m. at the Shoreline Clinic in Essex where he was brought.

Police reported that the owner of the trucking company Matos was working for came to the scene of the accident. The employer was investigated by the police accident reconstruction team and Amtrack police. State police will figure out if the vehicle has a mechanical problem.

According to the police, preliminary inspection by engineers from Amtrak and the state Department of Transportation -- who were expected at the scene to make a structural evaluation of the bridge-- found no serious issues.

Trains that day continued to operate at reduced speeds until the bridge could be inspected, said the Amtrak police.

Drivers are made aware of the presence of the bridge – and its low clearance over the roadway – with yellow sign marks found on Main Street, just before the turn onto Hull Street, and by a huge sign on Hull Street itself. In recent years, the bottom of the bridge also was painted yellow.

Police reveals that in the past years the bridge is often struck by trucks, but truck drivers seldom are injured. The difference is, the crash often takes out wind deflectors on the top of a truck, or the leading edge of a trailer. In the recent incident, the boom of the container truck acted like a battering ram.