Purple ink stains multiple Nashville cars

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — Dozens of drivers had their cars coated in purple Thursday evening while driving on I-40 west near the 440 split. The purple stains came from a semi truck crash that spilled purple ink all over the highway.

Patricia McGee is a native Nashvillian and has never experienced anything like what happened to her while driving Thursday night.

“It was psychedelic almost! But it’s awesome, its scary, and then all of the sudden it just stopped, but in the meantime everybody’s face, we’re all looking at each other like what just happened?” McGee described of the moment she drove through the purple wave.

It sounds like something from a song.

“It was like I was with Jimmy Hendrix or Prince or somebody with this purple haze or purple rain,” McGee laughed.

However, in actuality, police records show it’s spilled ink from a semi truck crash that coated dozens of cars on I-40 around 6 p.m.

“I couldn’t get in the car wash because there were so many people in there trying to get their car washed because a lot of them had the white cars or the lighter color cars, so you could see it!” McGee said.

According to the police call for service, multiple entities were asked to help with the cleanup, from TDOT, to Fire, to the office of Emergency Management, to TEMA. Even the Department for Environmental Protection was called.

Records show they ended up getting it cleaned up with something called dry oil. However, that’s not really a comfort to the people who now have stained cars.

FOX 17 found out, in cases like this people can use the accident report number to try and file a claim with insurance. That number is 20-389799.

Multiple people have told FOX 17 the ink does come off, but it’s not easy.