Viral video shows vehicles sliding off Indy road, crashing near cable truck
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – A video captured during Tuesday’s snowy traffic troubles in Indianapolis has gone viral.
It appears the incident began when a pickup truck went off the road and hit Comcast equipment. In the video, multiple vehicles are seen sliding off the road as drivers try to avoid the Comcast truck blocking a lane.
The man who records the video is shown asking a Comcast employee to consider moving the company truck off the road or place more cones to alert drivers.
The caption posted along with the video on YouTube reads: “I personally warned another arriving Comcast truck of the slide offs and danger of parking at the bottom of the hill. He blew me off because he “had a job to do”. Minutes later there was a crash because of the blocked lane. Multiple people were placed in danger. Even after the accident happened in front of them, they continued to work not changing any of their “safety” procedures. They showed ZERO concern for the safety of people before or after the accidents.”
The location was not immediately identified other than a comment suggesting the slide-offs and crash happened on West Morris Street on the city’s southwest side.
Dozens of social media users got Comcast’s attention after watching the video. The company’s Twitter page published several responses to concerned Twitter users.
“Thank you for contacting us. We’re aware of this issue and are currently working to address,” the response said.
On Wednesday afternoon, this statement was released from Ed Marchetti, SVP of Technical Operations at Comcast:
When I watched this video I was very concerned by what I saw. Our employees should always protect people and treat them with respect no matter what the situation. Safety matters most – especially in dangerous weather conditions like this.
We are actively investigating what happened when our technicians were on site to restore services during an outage and we will reach out to those who were impacted by this incident.
Within the next 24-48 hours, my team leaders will meet with our technicians across our company to use this as an example of how important it is to make everyone’s safety a priority in everything we do.
And just as important, there’s no place for disrespect – treating people the right way is the only way to work.
24-Hour News 8 contacted Indiana Department of Labor regarding the video and received this statement:
IOSHA did receive a safety complaint related to this video and will conduct a safety investigation.
To protect the integrity of the investigation, no additional information will be provided until the investigation is complete.
The Indiana Department of Labor is dedicated to advancing the health, safety and prosperity of Hoosiers in the workplace; ensuring the members of our dedicated workforce arrive home safely every day is of paramount importance. While I am happy to discuss general workplace safety practices with you, to protect the investigation, I cannot discuss any potential safety issues or violations that may have occurred at the Comcast worksite.
The video, uploaded by a man with the username “Amish Hacker,” had close to 100,000 views and thousands of comments in less than 24 hours. It was featured on the front page of Reddit.