A 69-year-old man was injured Tuesday morning at the highway construction site of the new U.S. Highway 59 south of Lawrence.

Sgt. Steve Lewis, a Douglas County Sheriff’s office, said that about 11:45 a.m. William E. Merkel was driving a truck for R.D. Johnson Excavating when he hit a pot of gravel, lost control of the vehicle and struck a ditch at the bottom of an embankment. Merkel suffered minor injuries but he was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital for treatment. The crash occurred near County Road 460 about six miles south of Lawrence.