Collision on I-75

Summary

Collision on I-75 tells an extraordinary public health story that has not been told before, and it tells it in a compelling and exciting way. It details over two decades of struggle by public health professionals, legislators, state officials, and law enforcement to compel a huge corporation to prevent deadly, suspected industrial-fog-related collisions.

A couple of weeks before Christmas in 1990, nearly one hundred vehicles collided on Interstate-75 northeast of Chattanooga in an unusually dense fog bank, leaving 12 dead and dozens seriously injured. Within days of the collision, Attorney Douglas Fees was contacted by Evelyn Piper whose son, Craig, had burned to death in the cab of his truck on I-75. Fees became the lead attorney in the case, eventually representing nearly all the accident victims who sought legal assistance.

It became clear to Fees that the cause of the tragedy was an artificial industrial fog that originated at the Bowater pulp mill a couple of miles up the valley from where the collision occurred. Bowater was the largest pulp mill in the United States, and the largest employer and landowner in Tennessee.

This is the true story of a tragic incident involving large numbers of people, corporate negligence, faulty state regulation, and a risk-taking attorney in pursuit of uncertain compensation for the victims and himself.