A recovery crew was summoned to an Irish road when a truck carrying up to 15,000 crabs crashed into a ditch and set the crustaceans free.
The McLaughlin Transport truck was carrying a load of crabs caught in Inishowen to restaurants and stores in Portugal when it wound up in the ditch at the side of the R238 road in Carrickmaquigley, Redcastle, County Donegal.
The driver was not injured, but the crash caused up to 15,000 crabs — approximately $70,000 worth of seafood — to be spilled out of their aluminum containers.
Crews from Burnfoot-based McLaughlin’s Light and Heavy Recovery Services were brought in to clear the wreckage and round up the crabs.
“It was a very unusual scene to say the least. When we arrived a lot of the crabs had spilled out of their containers and were making a bid for freedom into the fields,” company owner Odhran McLaughlin told RTE. “A team of up to ten of us had to physically retrieve the crabs and put them into large bags and reload them onto the truck. It took a good few hours to fill the bags.”
A crane was also brought to the scene to lift the truck and trailer upright.
McLaughlin estimated about 95% of the crabs were recovered during the 18-hour recovery effort.
