MENDON, N.Y. — Crews worked throughout the day Thursday to work to get a FedEx tractor trailer off I-90 and onto the road below, after a crash in the morning that sent the truck over the railing on a bridge, barely hanging on above Pittsford Mendon Center Road.

The truck was removed from I-90, the state Thruway, shortly before 5 p.m.

New York State Police say it happened around 8:50 p.m. when the truck driver sideswiped a disabled vehicle and flipped over the bridge guiderail. Its two trailers fell down below onto Pittsford Mendon Center Road. Three adults and an infant were inside that disabled vehicle and were taken to Strong Memorial Hospital with minor injuries. Crews say the driver of the FedEx truck also has minor injuries.

The front part of the truck was demolished by the guiderail, but the cab, also called the drier’s seat portion, is mostly fine. The driver was able to climb out by the time first responders got on the scene. The engine of the truck fell onto the road below from the force of the crash. The two trailers on the FedEx truck were empty.

“Had he come down onto the road, I don’t think this would have been a survivable accident. And in this case, I’m quite flabbergasted that he did survive with very minor injuries. It’s just, sometimes, the man upstairs is smiling at you and saying it’s not your time and that’s what he got today,” said Mark Cholach, chief of the Henrietta Fire District.

The eastbound lane of the interstate was backed up for about two miles, and Pittsford Mendon Center Road is shut down between Canfield Road and North Wilmarth Road. Traffic was still backed up pretty far along I-90 East as of 4:30 p.m. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, Henrietta Fire Department, and New York State Police are on scene, as well as a HAZMAT crew because of a diesel spill.

The big challenge is lifting something like the truck up and off safely without creating more damage and debris. Now that the truck has come down, there will be some major repairs needed for the guiderails to keep things safe.

“There is going to be no, or virtually no guardrail protecting this bridge. So, they’re either going to have to put up some type of guard, temporary guard rail, like a jersey wall or what have you, or repair the guard rail. There’s no way that that one lane can be open with the frequency of crashes, you know, I don’t want someone leaving the Thruway to come down onto the road below,” Cholach said.

The New York State Thruway posted on X around 8:50 a.m. about the crash on I-90 eastbound near exits 45 and 46, saying drivers should take different routes if possible.