Topic: ~$150,000 mistake

I came home from class to an empty house last night, which is rather unusual to say the least. As it turns out, my dad was on his way back to the yard from the refinery and the truck rolled when he exited the interstate. But to make a long story short, he's all right. Lots of bumps and bruises and cuts, but nothing too serious.

This is an prime example of what NOT to do when driving a truck filled with 7000 gallons of gas and diesel. (1500 gallons of which are still unaccounted for... Guess who gets to pay for that...)

Here are all the shots I took this morning of the truck in the wrecker yard: Truck Pics
Not all are particularly good shots, but you get an idea of what happened... There's also 3 shots of the "truck" that was "parked" next to my dads at the wrecker yard. I took those three to show how much worse it very easily could have been.

Here are a few of the better ones:

Cab from the front right


Cab from the right rear


Looking in the drivers side window


Looking through where the passenger side window used to be

More pics....

The whole passenger side


The trailer from the right rear


Whole truck from right rear


Through the windshield


[edit: pffft, flood control...

OMG ! I'm glad he's not hurt bad !

And he has to pay for the gas ???? I would think the insurance carrier would have to.

Judging by the photos, your dad was lucky to walk away from that!! I guess he was not impressed when you aked him if you could photgraph his "cuts and bruises"
Send my regards for his full recovery.

I'm not real sure how much of what the insurance will cover. I just know we're having to pay for the gas initially.

Didn't ask to get pictures of the cuts and bruises... Nothing terribly interesting to look at. Both him and I have had plenty worse in motorcycle crashes and other things. Besides, I didn't have the camera until this morning when I gte into the lab at the Univ

And he was very lucky to walk away from that... The driver that showed up later to carry off all the fuel they could get out wouldn't have been able to get out until the fire dept. showed up with the jaws of life. He was talking about how when it was sliding on its side and the steering wheel, the seat, the roof and the door kept getting closer together, he was thinking, 'OK, we're running out of room for me in here...' until it stopped, which then he started thinking, 'OK, I'm in a truck with 7000 gallons of fuel that's on it's side... Might be wise to get out of here real quick.'

Probably needless to say, in person the cab looks a lot smaller.

Wow. I am glad to hear that you father is OK. I know how scary something like that can be...

Check this out, happened yesterday 7/12/2003
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/135258741_accident13m.html


Frank

Ouch. Actually, depending on what ignited it initially, it was probably a good thing he was on his way to drop a load instead of on his way back to the yard empty. If one of the compartments were punctured, it would have exploded (bigger and sooner), causing much more damage and more than likely many more injuries and deaths.
You just have to remember that gasoline/diesal/etc doesn't "explode" anything like the vapor does (especially in an enclosed cell). And those trucks are never 'empty' empty.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting on the insurance company to say they won't insure my dad any more, which translates to 'change careers.'

Poor guy. Send him my condolences.