Fall River Watermelon Spill Sparks Sticky Situation on Route 79

If you happened to be driving on Route 79 in Fall River Tuesday night, you may have seen a very unusual sight. Several tons of watermelons were strewn across the highway when a tractor-trailer truck overturned.

As we were discussing it this morning on Michael and Maddie, we got a phone call from the guy who was tasked with cleaning up the green and hot-pink mess.

Michael Cleary works for Big Wheel Towing in East Freetown. Cleary says he arrived at the scene at about 8 p.m. Tuesday, and it took until after 1:30 a.m. to haul away all of the destroyed watermelons.  '

"The burning question we have," I said to Mike, "is does Fall River smell like watermelon this morning?"

"I think Fall River's gonna smell like watermelons for the next few months," Cleary joked.

All kidding aside, Cleary said that the whole scene really did smell strongly of watermelon during the cleanup.

Clearly told us that if he had to estimate, there were between 1,000 and 1,500 watermelons making up the full load in the back of the trailer. With the average-sized watermelon clocking in between 15 and 20 pounds, that's conservatively over 7 tons.

That's a lot of cookouts that will be going without fruit salad.

Luckily, the driver of the truck was transported from the scene with only minor injuries, Cleary said. The Associated Press reported the driver's injuries were non-life-threatening and that the cause of the incident was under investigation.

Incredibly, some of the melons that fell off the truck survived the fall, however, the Food and Drug Administration apparently demands that they be destroyed.

#WatermelonSugarHigh