By LINDSAY VanHULLE
WILLIAMSBURG -- The highway along M-72 is not Ron Rohloff's regular route.
Normally, the Grand Traverse County snowplow driver winds through the subdivisions of the Holiday Hills neighborhood that straddles East Bay and Acme townships.
But Rohloff picked up the M-72 route Thursday along the major artery to Kalkaska County as a favor to a colleague, whose truck was broken. Another plow driver scooped snow from the center and Rohloff followed behind, pushing it into the shoulder.
That's how it went, eastbound to the county line and back, until Rohloff found himself trapped -- first his blade, then his tire -- in a pack of hard snow on the shoulder near Elk Lake Road.
Once he realized he wouldn't be able to free himself, he let off the gas pedal. The plow came to a near-stop before it toppled onto the snowbank at about 11 a.m., presumably from the added weight of sand in the back.
"It wasn't even really bad out, either," said Rohloff, in his fifth season with the county road commission. "I had a good record going. I hadn't had any incidents with the truck until today.
"And I happened to do it in the flat, wide-open highway."
The whole event seemed to take hours, but in reality, Rohloff said it likely only lasted 20 seconds. He had been driving between 30 and 35 mph before becoming stuck.
The only apparent damage: A shattered passenger window and a few cracks in the mirror. He was uninjured.
"It was a pretty graceful tip," said Rohloff, who gathered his lunch and what was left of his coffee and waited for a tow truck inside the other plow. "I fixed the mirror and drove it back."
A report was filed with the Grand Traverse County sheriff's office, but Rohloff was not cited.
The road commission files damage reports for accidents or other incidents involving plows, and they are reviewed by a safety committee, Manager Mary Gillis said. Factors such as driver error and negligence are considered.
The plow involved is a single-axle vehicle, lighter than some of the other trucks in the county system, Gillis said. It could cost between $120,000 and $150,000 new.
It is too early to determine what caused Thursday's rollover, she said, and a damage estimate is unknown.
"This proves it -- any vehicle, even our snowplows, are subject to the same issues of safety with the ice and snow," she said, adding that it's more common for drivers to be caught in soft shoulders than tip.
"I'm glad no one was injured."
