Two incidents on Highway 401 halt westbound traffic for hours

Update (Friday, May 14, 2021 at 4 p.m.):
According to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), one of the two westbound lanes of Highway 401 is now reopened.

Original article:

In the early hours of Friday, May 14, 2021, a tractor trailer fire shut down the westbound lanes of Highway 401 west of the city of Kingston.

Just before 2:00 a.m. officers of the Lennox & Addington (L&A) County Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and other emergency crews responded to a report of a tractor trailer on fire on the north shoulder of Highway 401 westbound near the Odessa exit. The transport was hauling vehicles and was fully engulfed in flames, according to a release from OPP.

The road was closed to allow firefighters to extinguish the flames, and police said no one was injured in this incident. One westbound lane was reopened to traffic at 4:30 a.m.

A second incident took place less than two hours later in the same area. Just after 6:00 a.m. the OPP and other emergency crews responded to a report of a motor vehicle collision on 401 westbound, east of County Road 6 in Loyalist Township.

A westbound transport truck collided with the rear of another transport truck that was stopped in a traffic queue, according to OPP. The driver of the moving tractor trailer sustained serious injuries and was transported to hospital by paramedics. The westbound lanes remain closed while the OPP Technical Collision Investigation (TCI) team continues its work at the scene.