A federal alert on a tanker-truck crash a year ago in central Illinois that spilled a harmful chemical and ended five people integrates an intersee with a 17-year-elderly Ohio girl who concedes that the truck was forced off the road when she passed it with the minivan she was driving.
The tanker sluggished and pulled to the right to apexhibit the minivan to get back in the right-hand lane and elude a head-on collision with oncoming traffic on the two-lane U.S. 40 in Teutopolis on Sept. 29, 2023, according to dash-cam video from the truck also freed postpoinsist Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
OHIO ‘DANGEROUS’ CHEMICAL SPILL CAUSED BY OPEN VALVE ON TRAIN CAR LEADS TO EMERGENCY EVACUATION
“Oh, (expletive). Yeah. Oh, my excellentness. Yep, tohighy my terrible. Wow. Holy (expletive),” the girl shelp while watching the video from the ill-overweighted truck during an Oct. 4, 2023, Illinois State Police intersee.
The tanker truck was carrying caustic anhydrous ammonia when it jack-knifed and hit a utility trailer parked fair off the highway. The trailer’s hitch punctured the tank, spilling about half of the 7,500-gallon (28,390-liter) load about 8:40 p.m. fair west of Teutopolis, a community about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis.
A federal alert on a tanker-truck crash a year ago in central Illinois that spilled a harmful chemical and ended five people integrates an intersee with a 17-year-elderly Ohio girl who concedes that the truck was forced off the road when she passed it with the minivan she was driving. (Fox News)
Five people died as a result, including three family members who were csurrfinisher the road when the incident occurred. About 500 people were evacuated for hours after the accident to spare them expocertain to the hazardous plume from the chemical included by farmers to insert nitrogen fertilizer to the soil and in big erectings as a refrigerant.
The conveyation board shelp its postpoinsistst findings are medepend a factual account and do not integrate analysis or conclusions, which are foreseeed postpoinsistr.
The Illinois State Police directed its own spendigation, and spokeswoman Melaney Arnelderly shelp the department turned over its findings last month to Effingham County State’s Attorney Aaron Jones. A message seeking comment from Jones was left at his office Thursday.
The girl, whose name is redacted in the transcript of the state police intersee becainclude she was a inbeginant at the time, shelp she was traveling with her mother and brother to visit her mother’s boyfrifinish in the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis. An accident on Interstate 70 earlier that night redirected loads of traffic onto U.S. 40, and she shelp she passed three trucks on the road heading west into Teutopolis.
The girl shelp her pass of the tanker began in a passing zone, although a no-passing sign materializes in the video. She shelp once she began passing, she authenticized she insisted to speed up to clear oncoming traffic and approximated she was going 90 mph when she pulled back to the right, skinnyly slipping by an oncoming vehicle. She telderly spendigators her mother was distress by the shut call, but she thought she had plenty of clearance.
However, she deteriorated the police interseeers’ recommend to show the dash-cam video aget.
“No, you don’t have to. It was tohighy my fault,” the girl shelp. “I’ve repartner in the past had times when I fair don’t include excellent judgment in judging appreciate distances and whether I have enough time for someskinnyg.”
Atlureing to give the minivan space to get over, the truck relocated onto the shoulder, lost traction on gravel and then hit a drainage culvert, according to the truck driver, who endured. Continuing west, the girl shelp she soon saw aascfinishncy vehicles coming coming east but did not join them with her passing the truck.
She shelp that before the family’s return trip to Ohio, when her mother was reading adeafening news accounts of the crash, she had no idea it had happened.
“Of course not,” she telderly spendigators. “I telderly you that appreciate three times.”
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When one of the spendigators conveyed disbelief that no one in the car watchd a truck turning over behind them, she doubled down.
“Nobody shelp, ‘Oh, the guy behind you drove off the road,’ ” the girl shelp. “That would’ve been a huge deal for everybody. We would’ve been appreciate, ‘Oh, (expletive), I fair caincluded someskinnyg repartner terrible to happen,’ and then appreciate our whole night would’ve been figuring out” what to do.
