Interstate truck crash delays overnight traffic

A two truck wreck late Wednesday night and the resulting hazardous materials threat caused eight-mile delays on Interstate 78 and diverted traffic well into the Thursday morning rush.

At approximately 10:50 p.m. a tractor-trailer tanker truck carrying liquid oxygen driven by Frank Pineyro, 32, of Garfield was parked in the right shoulder of Interstate 78 just west of milepost 14.6 near the Rupell’s Road overpass when a box truck carrying bulk newspapers operated by Yusef Lakes, 31, of Newark lost control, entered into the right shoulder and struck the rear of the oxygen truck, according to the state police report filed at Perryville barracks.

Westbound traffic on I-78 from Exit 12 to 17 in Hunterdon County and surrounding roads were closed to traffic for precautionary reasons, with traffic diverted to Route 31 for most of the night, police said.

Pineyro was taken to Hunterdon Medical Center with minor injuries and Lakes was airlifted to Morristown Memorial Hospital with moderate injuries, according to the police report. Both drivers were treated and released, police said Thursday.

Hunterdon County Emergency Management Coordinator William Powell responded to the scene Wednesday night with the county’s Hazardous Materials Response Team.

“”We evaluated what was going on and basically the issue was there wasn’t a whole lot we could do at that point,” Powell said in a telephone interview Thursday. “”We called in additional resources from the state police Hazmat team and basically had to wait for the trucking company experts to get together and safely offload the remainder of the oxygen.”

Initial reports said the truck was carrying as much as 4,000 pounds of liquid oxygen. Powell said the truck had made at least one delivery and was not full, but the volume gauge was inoperable so it was impossible to tell how much was actually left.

“”When they pulled the two trucks apart they utilized the Hunterdon County Foam Task Force,” Powell said, speaking of the anti-inflammatory foam used to minimize fire or explosion from metal sparking. “”This was the team’s first real deployment and it worked out well.”

The foam equipment was purchased for the county with federal Homeland Security funds. One trailer each is operated by the High Bridge and West Amwell fire companies, with a third supply trailer coming to Oldwick Fire shortly, Powell said.

All lanes of I-78 were open with traffic flowing freely by about 9:40 a.m. Thursday after the clean up was completed.

ednote Walter O’Brien: 908-243-6613; wobrien@MyCentralJersey.com