By LEONARD GRAY

GRAMERCY – A Baton Rouge truck driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel Friday morning and when his tires slipped off the road, he overcompensated and quickly lost his load of lumber, spun and died in the wreck which followed.

Jay Lee Mason Jr., 27, of 11625 Glenda Drive, Baton Rouge, was eastbound on Interstate 10, at mile-marker 201, between the Gramercy and Belle Terre Boulevard exits. Mason, driving a flatbed truck with a load of cut lumber for Hogan Hardwoods of Baton Rouge, drove the truck off the shoulder, according to Lt. Rick Hylander of the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office.

The jarring of the wheels awakened Mason, and the skid marks showed investigators, he overcompensated, and the weight shifted. The load of lumber broke free and scattered off the right shoulder and Mason tried to regain control. Instead, Hylander said, Mason veered across the median, spun the truck at least once and was ejected through the windshield onto the inside westbound lane, where he died.