Truck rolls over in pasture after hitting injured moose

A large box truck carrying cargo from Missoula to Great Falls wound up in a pasture just west of Lincoln after colliding with an injured moose Thursday morning, Sept. 27.

Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Brandon Uhl said a pickup traveling west out of Lincoln first hit the moose just after 6 a.m., near the Parker Medical Clinic. The driver of the pickup pulled over, but the injured moose remained in the road when the eastbound truck hit it.

"It was a bull moose, big bull," Uhl said.

The truck driver didn't see the animal lying in the road in the pre-dawn darkness, Uhl said. When the cargo truck hit the animal, the left front tire came off the ground and the driver lost control. He swerved across the centerline before going off the road, went through a barbed wire fence north of the highway and onto property owned by Paul Roos. The truck rolled onto it's right side, splitting the top of the cargo compart away from the walls and spilling boxes onto the ground.

Uhl said both drivers were wearing their seatbelts and were uninjured.

"Just a typical animal crash in Montana," Uhl said. "It's just that time of year when you've got to be careful, with the rut going on. Moose are just starting to rut and the elk are rutting."

The driver of the truck, an independent contractor out of Dallas, said this was his first encounter with a moose.