15,000 Pounds of Hot Dog Filling Spilled on the Side of a Pennsylvania Highway

America may have a few fewer hot dogs this summer grilling season after a semi-trailer crash dumped about 15,000 pounds of hot dog filler onto a Pennsylvania highway. Using an average of 1.6 ounces per dog, that's a loss of around 150,000 wieners.

The incident took place back on May 20, but images of the scene have gone viral in its aftermath as social media users gawk at the sight of thousands of pounds of the gooey pink processed meat oozing onto the side of an interstate highway. The original photos posted to Facebook by the Rostraver Central Fire Department, which responded to the scene, have been liked and shared hundreds of times. Meanwhile, a tweet from ABC7 New York posted on Monday has received nearly 20,000 likes and over 2,000 retweets.

According to a Pennsylvania Law Enforcement report, the accident took place around 6:40 p.m. on a stretch of I-70 in Rostraver Township about a half-hour southeast of Pittsburgh. The vehicle veered off the road at "a high rate of speed" causing the cab to become impaled by several trees, resulting in a "violent stopping motion." The load inside the trailer then became dislodged "causing approximately 15,000-pounds of hot dog filler to catapult onto the roadway."

Cleaning up the goopy meat wasn't easy: Police say the road was closed for nearly four hours while all the "hot dog debris" was cleared, with TribLive reporting that traffic was reduced to one lane until about 11:30 p.m.

As for the cause, the report states that further investigation revealed that "multiple breaks on the vehicle were completely inoperable, resulting in a total loss of stopping power" — a pretty shocking revelation for such a large truck. The driver — who was listed as having a "suspected minor injury" but refused medical transport — also received "numerous citations," which reportedly included at least one for speeding. Whether wasting perfectly good hot dog filler is considered a crime in Pennsylvania wasn't mentioned.