December 23 – Virginia and Mountain Iron firefighters responded to an early morning accident involving two commercial vehicles. The accident was reported around 5:00 a.m. at the intersection of Highway 53 and 12th Avenue South in Virginia. According to the Minnesota State Patrol, a logging truck heading south on the highway collided with a Viking Electric truck. The driver of the Viking truck, 50 year old Peter Nilsson of Duluth, was seriously injured and transported by Virginia Ambulance to Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth. The driver of the logging truck was not injured. The accident forced the closing of the northbound lanes of Highway 53 as wrecker crews removed debris and one of the vehicles. The logging truck just missed hitting the nearby Holiday gas station. Some of the logs fell off the trailer and struck a car, but the driver was not injured.
