Posted on 08/18/2025 12:49:53 AM PDT by Libloather
A Louisiana man was arrested after allegedly hijacking a construction crane and blocking traffic on an interstate — triggering a series of car crashes that left two people injured and led to a prolonged road closure, according to authorities.
Matthew Vincent, 37, of Vinton, was taken into custody Saturday after police received multiple reports of cars crashing into a work zone around 5:30 a.m. on Interstate 10 near Louisiana Highway 108, Louisiana State Police said in a news release.
When cops arrived, they found the crane sitting in the median with its cables hanging over the westbound lanes. The cables struck a passing vehicle, which led to three more collisions in a wild scene, police said.
No construction was underway at the time of the collisions, and no known crew members were manning the crane when it caused the highway pile-up, according to authorities.
Detectives eventually discovered a Ram pickup truck key fob inside the crane and found a truck matching it in a field south of I-10 near the crash site.
Vincent had driven the truck off the highway into the field before getting stuck, then fled on foot across the interstate and “unlawfully” entered the crane, authorities later determined.
Once inside, Vincent allegedly moved the crane’s boom arm onto the roadway, causing “major damage” to the piece of equipment, obstructing the roadway, and causing a prolonged closure of the interstate, police said in the statement.
The four crashes left two people injured, cops said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Florida man wonders why he didn’t think of using a crane to get his truck out of the mud. Hat’s off to Louisiana man.
That might be what he was doing. The man is very resourceful.
Steal big or go home.
Buy your own equipment keys online. No need to hot wire. Drive it like you own it. Mexico style, you construction people know what it is about, Socialistic styled thimk.
No Boo-boo here. When you hear of a weird crime like this, you know it’s one of us. LOL!
Louisiana man tells Florida man “Hold Ma Beers”
Lol- yep lol 😆 usually a Florida man or redneck prank gone wrong 😆
[[causing “major damage” to the piece of equipment, obstructing the roadway, and causing a prolonged closure of the interstate]]
Yeah, but, other than that, it was a pretty good day all around.
My sin is a trucker who at one point worked for a construction supply company that was very poorly managed and went bankrupt. On his last day, he delivered some gear to the yard and locked it up. Unemployed, he had nothing better to do so he decided to see where the dirt road near the yard went. 3/4 mile later he drove over a patch if ice that turned out to be a 4’ deep sinkhole full of water.
Lost his job and destroyed his truck within ten minutes.
Off road recovery would be expensive so he hiked back to the yard and liberated a Skytrack four wheel drive forklift. (similar to a crane) He used it to drag his dead truck back to the road and a normal tow.
So, stealing heavy equipment to rescue a truck can be done.
Sin=Son
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