Here at Consumerist, we have a completely understandable obsession with tractor-trailer accidents where food ends up strewn across the highway, especially when no one is seriously injured. Yet there’s a strange symmetry to two unrelated accidents in the last week that left thousands of live piglets running from the wreck in Ohio, and 70,000 pounds of bacon strewn across train tracks and a highway in Illinois. 

We’ve covered highways strewn with salmon, Twizzlers, ramen noodles, fries, potatoes, chicken, ham, beer, margarine, more beer, and some inadvertently charred ribs.

The accident involving the live piglets happened last night. Only the truck carrying the animals was involved, and one passenger sustained minor injuries. A few hundred piglets were killed in the accident, and witnesses describe seeing something completely unexpected: piglets running along the highway. The tiny hogs were feeder pigs, on their way to an auction or to a farm where they would live until they reach their full potential and are sent to slaughter.

Local farmers volunteered their trailers to gather as many of the animals as they could, and the animals were taken to the local fairgrounds until everyone could figure out the next steps. Most of the surviving piglets have been rounded up, but some remain at large and may never be found.

On Friday, an Amtrak train collided with a tractor-trailer full of bacon in rural Illinois, scattering the cargo across the tracks and the road. About a dozen people were taken to the hospital for their injuries, but none were life-threatening.

Piglet death toll in U.S. 35 semi crash nearly 400 [WHIO]
AMTRAK TRAIN COLLIDES WITH TRUCK CARRYING BACON NEAR WILMINGTON [ABC 7]

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