A truck driver escaped serious injury Tuesday after his dump truck missed the curve at the bottom of Toe Jam Hill Road, ripped through a 30-foot guard rail and dropped 20 feet to the beach below.

Bainbridge Island Assistant Fire Chief Jared Moravec said the driver was able to get out of his truck and was on the shore by the time emergency crews arrived at the scene Tuesday afternoon.

The truck driver, who declined to talk to a reporter about the crash, was hauling rock for Whitworth Excavating to a nearby job site.

Authorities said he had minor cuts and did not want to be taken to the hospital.

Neighbors along South Beach came to his immediate aid, and offered him a cell phone to call his employer. A co-worker soon arrived and the driver told him how he went off the road at the 90-degree curve at the bottom of the steep hill where Toe Jam Hill Road connects with South Beach Drive.

The dump truck landed on its side and partly in the water, and a tow truck was en route to the scene late Tuesday to remove the truck.

Moravec said the Coast Guard and the Department of Ecology had been notified, and the Bainbridge fire department’s spill response unit was also called out to deploy a spill boom and absorbent pads to prevent oil and diesel fuel from the truck from spreading in Rich Passage.

The sight of the truck on the beach drew a crowd of curious onlookers. Some of them pulled out cell phones to take pictures, including a UPS driver making deliveries in the neighborhood.

A woman driving a U.S. Postal Service truck slowed down to tell emergency responders about her fears of driving down Toe Jam Hill Road.

“I used to have nightmares about coming down this hill,” she called out as she moved slowly past on South Beach Drive. “I won’t come down it when it snows.”