CEMENT LORRY ROLLOVER ADDS TO A CHALLENGING DAY AT LEHANE ENVIRONMENTAL My mobile rings, with the Regulatory Authority flashing up on the screen. I am informed that a truck has gone in over a bridge in a town. The information is sparse as the Inspector himself is only on route to the scene but he is expecting photos from the Fire Service who are already on the scene. Whilst I’m on the mobile phone an email pops through on my screen – URGENT CHEMICAL TANKER LEAK ON NATIONAL PRIMARY ROUTE – SULPHURIC ACID. Our Operations Manager has already identified resources that can be mobilised for the Chemical Spill. We added the RTA to the incident list and put more resources on standby. As most emergency service providers know, the information and the accuracy of it, on any initial call for an incident, can be totally misleading. Products/ UN Numbers/Volumes/Locations etc can all be incorrect. Until we have confirmation, we do not know what we are dealing with. This is why we request photos of markings and of the site if possible and also copies of other relevant documentation such as SDS/DG Notes etc. Ideally, we want to speak to someone on the scene but this is not always possible. We dispatch an Advance Response Unit to the Acid Tanker Spill. The acid spill appeared to come from a top manhole on an acid tanker and the spill on the road extended for about ~50m. The driver was turning off on a slip road just after roadworks and it appears the breaking action caused the acid to spill out through the manhole. The acid was mainly on the slip road and the hard shoulder and was visibly fuming. We requested the attendance of the Road Maintenance Contractor to close the slip road and divert the traffic.
In the interim the photos started coming through from the RTA. The truck had indeed gone over the bridge, the photos looked very bad and the first instinct was tragedy - that there was possibly a loss of life. This would also require us to deploy a Trauma Cleanup Team. A follow up call from the regulatory authority however confirmed that the driver was in fact in hospital and in a stable condition. This is the most important part of any incident – protection of life – whether it is people involved in the incident or our teams responding. Our Biohazard Teams do Trauma and Crime Scene Cleanup and we are all too aware of the tragedy that people meet with. The report from the RTA was that fuel was leaking from the Truck. It was identified from the photos as a Cement Mixer. This meant that there was potentially 400 litres of fuel to leak, plus Lube Oils and more seriously was the concrete in the barrel. This combination could have a devastating effect on the river which was a prime fishing location.
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