Incident: Jancourt East, road accident - trapped
District: 6
Date: 21 June 2011
Time: 6:43am
Brigades: Bungador, Irrewillipe, Colac, Simpson, Carpendeit-South Purrumbete, Cobden SES
First crews on scene were amazed and relieved to find the driver suffering only minor injuries.
“The road conditions were horrendous,” said Corangamite Group Officer Mark Billing. “There was very heavy rain just prior. The driver said the tanker aquaplaned and he became a passenger, not the driver. It was fortunate there was no other traffic on the road because the tanker then jackknifed and hit an embankment on the other side of the road and tipped over.
“We had a gas detector on the scene and found nothing there. The tanker was effectively empty but there would have been about 200 cubic metres of gas vapour in the tank.
“I put a stop on Warrnambool Hazmat once I spoke to the gas company. They were on the way with a flare-off unit specific to the tanker. The tanker was actually only a few months old with all the safety features but it’s now a complete write-off.”
VicRoads was stretched by the atrocious weather conditions statewide and asked CFA to remain on scene for traffic control. Crews could have done with some CFA-issue hot water bottles to combat the freezing conditions.
“Once that truck started sliding the driver would have had no control,” said District 6 Operations Manager
By 12.23pm the tanker was righted but the pressure was deemed too high. It was moved 500 metres away from the accident site to allow for a gas flare off.
Seven hours after the first call, three tankers and the District 6 Forward Control Vehicle were still not back in their stations.
Photos to come
In the same hazardous road conditions, tankers from Bookaar, Chocolyn, Boorcan and Camperdown brigades were turned out to a motor vehicle accident at 11.30am.
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