A truck and trailer filled with LALA milk products toppled over in Rosarito.

On July 28, a truck full of Aroma-brand rice cookers overturned a couple of blocks north of Mira Mesa Boulevard.

"We were confused how that freaking big thing happened," an employee of a nearby business said to me on August 6. "When I came out for lunch, it was already tipped over, and I was like, 'Oh cool, I have like the whole action in front of me.'"

Two police officers and four individuals in civilian clothing formed a daisy chain from turned-over truck in Mira Mesa.

The San Diego Police Department posted a Facebook video of what transpired that Wednesday: inside the rear of the toppled cargo truck, two police officers in uniform and four individuals in civilian clothing formed a daisy chain. The six of them passed rice cooker-filled boxes to people outside who loaded 12 pallets on the pavement where Top Gun Road tees into Camino Santa Fe, feet away from the Lusk Business Park cement signage.

"It took us three hours," said Sheryl, a dispatcher from Guardian Towing Inc. on August 9, "because they had to unload it. We couldn't do it (roll the truck onto its four wheels) with the rice cookers in there because it's going to put a load on our tow trucks."

Each cardboard box unloaded weighed more than 13 pounds each and contained two ARC 360 NG model rice cookers. Walmart sells what they call "America's number one rice cooker" for $32.67 apiece.

"We had to unload everything to make it lighter and save the load."

"Even if we had enough power to flip the truck over with the stuff in it," Ali continued, "all the stuff would have been juggled around. That's why we had to unload everything to make it lighter and save the load."

Ali is the owner of Guardian Towing Inc. by Miramar Road. He explained on August 9 how he and his buddy in the other tow truck strapped cables onto what appears to be a 26-foot truck before simultaneously pulling it back. The cable "goes into the suspension and to the frame, then you got to pull down on this thing. And it needs to be cinched down for it not to slide towards you."

Per SDPD: "The tow truck driver[s] flipped the truck back onto its four wheels. The road was cleared. The driver was ok, and no one else was injured."

"It sounds like it's on the driver or other drivers on the road that made that into an accident," opined Kahlee, a Mira Mesa resident and former warehouse employee who has helped load trucks. "I don't think the rice cookers have anything to do with it unless they were cooking rice on the drive."

Ali disagreed with Kahlee. "The weight was extreme; it was very overloaded. I talked to the driver, and he claimed that he was going around the corner, and he started feeling the truck leaning; the right outer tire blew out as the load shifted to that side."

Ali has assisted the CHP and the SDPD with rolled-over vehicles for the past 34 years. "We get a lot of those; I got probably 2,000 or more pictures of vehicles upside down. I've helped [toppled] trucks loaded with horses, hay, and airplanes." He helps truck drivers trekking in from Mexico. "They come in 18-wheelers transporting cars and equipment, which I roll them onto my flatbed."

The next day, about 45 miles south of Mira Mesa, a truck and trailer filled with LALA milk products toppled over in Rosarito. Agencia Infonort News reported that the accident's probable cause was attributed to the refrigerated trailer's brakes. "The driver, Alfredo T., 24, was treated by Red Cross paramedics, and he had no life-threatening injuries."

Locals here said that this part of south Rosarito, where Bulevar 2000 meets with Carretera Federal 1D — "has signs that are confusing" and "there's been a lot of accidents there lately." The milk products in the haul were reportedly destroyed for safety precautions.

Back in the U.S., per the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: "Of the approximately 499,000 police-reported crashes involving large trucks in 2018, there were 4,415 (one percent) fatal crashes and 107,000 (21 percent) injury crashes... Overturn (rollover) was the first harmful event (the first event during a crash that resulted in injury or property damage) in four percent of all fatal crashes involving large trucks and two percent of all nonfatal crashes involving large trucks."