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Even in the category of “things that shouldn’t be covering the highway right now, but are,” there’s an order of desirability. Four tons of slimy eels from an aquarium tanker truck? Bad. Enough frozen pizzas to feed a freshman dorm? Better…but still messy. But thousands and thousands of dollars in cold, hard cash blowing in the wind? We think you know the answer.
As the Champaign News-Gazette reports, a courier for a company that runs video-gambling machines was transporting tens of thousands of dollars across Illinois on Tuesday when he lost control of his car on on Interstate 74 near the small town of Mahomet and crashed, taking out two other cars in the process. The force of the accident destroyed the trunk and several windows of the courier’s vehicle, sending a good chunk of that casino cash flying out onto the roadway. Fortunately, only minor injuries were reported.
Split up between fives, tens, and twenties, all that money seems to have been blown a fair distance around the crash scene before authorities arrived to clean everything up. At least one video shows a state trooper trying to use an actual broom to sweep piles of cash off the highway, while other pictures show officials on their hands and knees to snag every last bit of dough.
Though all the cars involved in the crash ended up off the pavement, Illinois State Police still closed the road for over an hour while the cleanup took place to prevent a mad rush of roadside prospectors. Officers told St. Louis Post-Dispatch that they managed to recover every last bit of cash, but if you happen to be driving on that stretch of I-74 in the next few days, it’s not the worst idea in the world to keep your eyes peeled for stray bills. Just don’t cause another accident trying to recover it—or we’ll have to report on your misadventure, too.
