Clean-up, Aisle 101: Truck carrying slime eels overturns on Ore. highway

LINCOLN COUNTY, Ore. — A truck carrying slime eels overturned on Highway 101 along the Oregon Coast Thursday, covering two vehicles and the roadway in slime and the slippery creatures.

Troopers say a man was hauling 7,500 pounds of slime eels north on Highway 101 near Depoe Bay when he failed to stop when an Oregon DOT worker advised him to do so.

The transfer of the weight caused one of the containers to come off the truck and fly across the highway into the southbound lanes. The rest fell and spilled into the highway.

The flying container of slime eels caused a chain-reaction crash, pushing four cars into each other, including a pair of tourists from Norway, troopers said. Only the people in the first car that was struck were injured, but they're expected to be OK.

A bulldozer was brought in to try to clean up the mess as surviving slime eels slithered along the highway.

"In this heat... what is this going to start smelling like in the next few days?" bewildered Oregon State Police troopers tweeted.

Apparently the slime eels were on their way to be shipped to South Korea as food, police say.

The animals are officially known as "hagfish" -- a primitive jawless fish similar to lamprey, according to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife.

"The slime is a protein based mucous produced by glands along each side of the eel's body that forms the slime when mixed with water," the ODFW Tweeted.

Highway 101 was cleared and opened back up to traffic just before 4 p.m.