Raw video of New Jersey tanker fire
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejbIzOusejc&hl=en&fs=1]
A 3:00 PM crash on Thursday left a gasoline tanker overturned and burning on the ramp from the New Jersey Turnpike to northbound Route 3. Here are excerpts from an article by Maura McDermott at The Star-Ledger:
The tanker driver suffered second- and third-degree burns over 40 percent of his body, and was in critical but stable condition at University Hospital in Newark, according to State Police Sgt. Stephen Jones.
The driver escaped from the burning truck and a passing motorist took him to the hospital.
“Witnesses said his boots were on fire when he got out of the truck,” said Tom Feeney, spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.
The driver, identified as Rajinder Singh, 33, of Queens, N.Y., was a former Belleville resident, Jones said. The truck, operated by RS Oil of Lyndhurst, was carrying 8,500 gallons of unleaded gas. It took 45 minutes to an hour to put out the flames, he said.
After Singh ran from the truck, an unidentified female passerby pushed him to the ground and used her coat to put out the flames on his head and shoulders, Jones said. Another passerby put out the flames on his legs.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and local fire departments battled the blaze, with the authority’s fire truck spraying foam on the burning tanker to suppress the flames, he said.
The truck overturned in the same place where a propane tanker flipped July 31, causing traffic tie-ups for drivers headed to a Bruce Springsteen concert at the Izod Center, Feeney said. There were no scheduled events at the arena tonight.
