I-80 wreck
By Aaron LeClair
Boomerang Staff Writer
Both a Wyoming Department of Transportation worker and the driver of a commercial semi tractor-trailer escaped injury from a fiery wreck that took place around 8:15 a.m. Wednesday on Interstate 80.
The wreck, which happened at milepost 302 on I-80, resulted in the complete destruction of the cab of a Discovery Transport semi tractor-trailer driven by an unidentified man who had allegedly fallen asleep at the wheel.
Lt. Derek Mickelson of the Wyoming Highway Patrol said they received a call about a wreck in the westbound lanes of I-80 involving the semi-tractor trailer and a yellow WYDOT flatbed truck hauling white striping paint and auto glass beads.
Traveling at 75 mph, the tractor-trailer clipped the rear driver’s side of the WYDOT flatbed truck, which was traveling at 15 mph while “shadowing” a WYDOT striping truck.
The collision ruptured the tractor-trailer’s gas tank, which immediately resulted in a fire.
“As a result of that collision, diesel fuel was spilled,” Mickelson said.
After the collision, the tractor-trailer left the roadway and came to rest in the grass median while it continued to burn.
“It caught on fire and, basically, burned to the ground,” Mickelson said.
The flames from the tractor-trailer scorched parts of the grass median before motorists and fire crews put them out.
The tractor-trailer pushed the WYDOT flatbed truck to the north side of the westbound driving lane.
A third vehicle, a Suzuki SUV, became involved when it hit some debris that had remained on the roadway following the wreck, Mickelson said.
The people in the SUV were unharmed.
Mickelson said the tractor-trailer driver was issued a citation for following too closely.
WYDOT spokesperson Ross Doman of Laramie said the force of the tractor-trailer’s impact was enough to heavily damage the WYDOT flatbed truck’s rear impact attenuator.
He said they could not use the flatbed truck for shadowing their striping vehicle on I-80 until they obtain a new impact attenuator.
Doman added that the force of the impact broke several containers that were riding on the back of the WYDOT flatbed truck, spilling white striping paint and auto glass beads onto the roadway.
WYDOT striping technician Morgan Nelands said he was following the striping vehicle when he looked up in his rear view mirror and saw the tractor-trailer closing in on him.
“I just looked up in the mirror and he was right on the rear and impacted the attenuator,” he said. “It just gave me a big push off to the edge of the road.”
Nelands said he could feel the heat and see flames when the Discovery Transport tractor-trailer hurtled past his flatbed truck on the driver’s side following the collision.
“As soon as he hit me, his fuel tank burst into flames,” he said. “I was pretty glad I had my window up at the time. When the heat passed by and the flames were around his truck, I could feel it through the door.”
Nelands said he exited his flatbed truck and ran over to the tractor-trailer to check on the driver, who had already fled the cab.
After checking on the tractor-trailer driver, Nelands said he put out a fire that had started underneath his flatbed truck with a small fire extinguisher. He then called the WHP over his vehicle’s radio system.
“Both of us were not injured, thank goodness,” Nelands said about himself and the tractor-trailer driver. “It certainly made for an interesting day.”
Nelands said his flatbed truck had flashing lights, flags and an arrow board with chevrons on the back to tell people to move over into the other lane.
“Sometimes, people just have a hard time seeing it,” he said. “I don’t know why.”
John Oberholz, a driver for Yellow Transportation out of Chicago, was an eyewitness to the events that took place immediately after the wreck. He was traveling eastbound on I-80 at the time.
“We approached the truck accident right after it happened,” he said in a telephone interview from Sydney, Neb.
Oberholz said his co-driver helped fight the fires in the back of the WYDOT flatbed truck and along the grass median with a fire extinguisher from their cab.
“I pulled out my camera. He went over with our fire extinguisher and had gone over to the state truck and helped them put out the flames on that back trailer of that truck,” Oberholz said. “Then (he) proceeded to go around and put out some of the grass fires.”
Oberholz said he could feel the intense heat from the fire that was consuming the Discovery Transport tractor-trailer despite standing about 200 feet away.
The fire was hot enough to cause the tractor-trailer’s tires to pop, which made what sounded like small explosions, he said.
Oberholz said the driver of the Discovery Transport tractor-trailer appeared to be uninjured and was able to exit the cab of his truck under his own power.
While the WHP did not offer a cause, Oberholz said a motorist at the scene had told him that the driver of the Discovery Transport tractor-trailer had fallen asleep before he hit the WYDOT flatbed truck.
“We were told that he had fallen asleep and rear-ended the state truck,” Oberholz said. “He did not tell me personally that he fell asleep. A gentleman that he was talking to came over and told me that he said he had fallen asleep.”
Oberholz said he and his co-driver remained at the scene for 45 minutes before leaving eastbound on I-80.
He said, “I just thank God that no one was seriously injured.”
