It only took a 10-second discussion for Tyee reporter David Ball and his friends to decide they should stop and help the driver of a fuel tanker truck that had flipped on Highway 1 early Wednesday morning.
Ball and two friends were driving along Highway 1 around 12:30 a.m. when the cars ahead of them started to slow down, stopping suddenly. Ball didn’t see the crash but as he and his friends approached they could see the aftermath. A fuel tanker truck that had been travelling eastbound near the Willingdon Avenue exit was on its side, straddling the median and lying on its side in the westbound lanes.
“All I saw was a lot of cars stopped, a truck facing the wrong way … and a whole bunch of people milling around on the highway with cars still whizzing by them,” he recalled.
Ball and his friends jumped into action. They approached the truck, where others who had stopped were gathered, and one of his friends climbed on top of the cab to speak with the driver still inside.
Ball said the driver’s main concern was calling his wife so, when he’d climbed out of the cab and jumped down (it was quite the jump, according to Ball, who helped catch the driver), Ball’s friend gave him her cellphone to use.
Once the truck driver was out of the cab, Ball and the others went about directing traffic and explaining to drivers they needed to stay away until the diesel could be cleaned up.
“The median was saturated in diesel, it was just so wet. Everything was sprayed with diesel and we crossed maybe 40 yards away from the truck, so the truck had slid, obviously, and there was a big smear across the left lane of the road,” he said.
Using the flashlight on his iPhone, Ball helped direct motorists until emergency crews, including Burnaby firefighters, arrived on scene about 10 minutes later.
“The one thought that’s just running through my mind still, is just how lucky everybody was all around,” Ball said.
“Everyone was helping, it was a very collective effort and quite inspiring how everyone jumped into action and cleared the area and started directing traffic and helping the first aid (crews),” he added.
According to the RCMP, the tanker truck allegedly rear-ended a vehicle, causing the truck to slide along the concrete median and flip over, spilling about 100 litres of diesel on the road. Highway 1 was closed in both directions between Kensington and Boundary Road for about seven hours while crews cleared the scene.
The truck driver sustained only minor cuts to his hand and the other driver was uninjured, stated a media release from RCMP.
The fuel tanker truck was smaller than most and only about half full – carrying about 10,000 litres of diesel, according to Burnaby assistant fire chief Bryan Kirk.
Crews were quick to contain the spill, preventing any diesel from seeping into nearby drains and contaminating the streams, Kirk added.
“They protected the storm drains and put some dikes up and barricades and basically just sort of babysat it until the truck was uprighted this morning,” he said.
Once the truck was upright, crews went to work cleaning up the remaining diesel. As a precaution, the truck itself was drained prior to lifting it upright, Kirk added.
“Once they move it, it’s vulnerable to maybe coming apart so (crews) didn’t want to have 10,000 litres on the ground,” he said. “That’s why it took like eight hours. They were just being super cautious.”
The highway was reopened around 8 a.m.
Mounties are now investigating what caused the crash. Neither the fog nor the weather are believed to be contributing factors at this time, the release added.
For Ball, it’s something he won’t soon forget.
“In retrospect it was exciting and mostly inspiring to see people take control of the situation and take a very communal effort to fixing it and helping people,” he said.
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