A predawn crash Tuesday near Alvord, Texas, left a sea of dimes scattered across US Route 287 after an 18-wheeler hauling a load for the US Mint overturned about 50 miles north of Fort Worth. The truck, carrying $800,000 worth of freshly minted coins—8 million dimes—rolled onto its side at a curve around 5:15am, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Cleanup took about 14 hours, with crews relying on heavy-duty vacuum trucks, the New York Times reports.
Workers also used shovels and their hands to gather dimes that had strayed from the highway. Heavy rainfall later in the day may have washed away any remaining loose coins, says Alvord Mayor Caleb Caviness. "The funniest part to me was that they picked up the dimes using the vacuum trucks that are used to suck out sewage and water and stuff like that," Caviness tells the Times. No public rush to collect the coins materialized, despite rumors in the town of 1,400 that the truck had spilled $8 million in dimes, not 8 million dimes.
The truck's owner, Western Distributing Transportation Corp., noted online that its vehicles are armored and operated by armed staff, often transporting valuable government cargo. Officials in Wise County said the truck's two occupants, the driver and an armed guard, were hospitalized with injuries and released the same day, the Guardian reports.
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