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Thousands Of Slime Eels Slither Along Highway And Over Cars In Crash

By Roz Zurko
Published on: 09:08 PST, Jul 14, 2017

Seeing is believing, but seeing this was certainly not for the faint of heart as thousands of eels covered the pavement in disgusting slime and slithered down the highway. A truck not breaking in time for a traffic jam sent containers of slime eels airborne on U.S. Highway 101, resulting in thousands of the live eels spilling all over the traffic lanes. The highway looked like the scene right out of a horror movie with an Oregon State Trooper standing in the middle of a mess that is not usually connected to dry land.

These slithering entities are called “slime eels,” but technically they are hagfish. These odd creatures have no jaw or spine, but they secrete slime when they’re distressed, and they couldn’t have been more distressed than when they plopped out onto the pavement. The slime was everywhere, and the 7,500 pounds of live slime eels moved rapidly around in this substance, according to Oregon Live.

The eel containers went flying, crashing into other vehicles. One of the cars covered in slime had eels all around it, making it look like something that just drove up on shore out of the water. The Oregon State Police took pictures of the incident and posted the photos on their social media pages. The pictures went viral as they captured a sight that most people wouldn’t see during their lifetime. The word “disgusting” was used today in quite a few online comments, along with the news broadcasts that showed clips of this mess. You can see the highway mess in the video below.

As you can see the cars involved in this accident weren’t only banged up, but they were covered with the secreted slime, and eels slithered around in the aftermath. There were no injuries involved, but it is not known if any passersby lost their lunch after taking a gander at this mess. So where were these eels or hagfish headed to before they poured all over Highway 101?

According to Oregon Live, the truck was driven by Salvatore Tragale, and he was transporting these hagfish on their first leg of a long trip where they would eventually end up on the other side of the world. They were going to a place where they are considered a delicacy, Korea.

Tragale, who was traveling northbound on 101, came across a traffic jam due to road construction, and he couldn’t stop his truck in time. He slammed on the brakes, and the containers became airborne, sailing into the southbound lane. This sparked off a chain reaction of collisions, with the containers hitting on-coming vehicles.

A 64-year-old man from Arizona was in one of the vehicles that were hit with the crates of slime eels. He sustained minor injuries in this bizarre accident, but everyone else was fine. For the hagfish, it was a different story as they all died right there on Highway 101. Once eels are out of the salt water, they die quickly, according to the reports.

This was no little mess to clean up, and the accident caused the highway to close down lanes for several hours. Only one lane remained open for a few hours as the Department of Transportation and the Fire Department cleared the road of the eels and slime. The section of highway was back to normal just in time for the 5 p.m. rush hour.

[Featured Image by Lee Jin-man/AP Images]

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