Driver In Fiery Mass.Tanker Crash Dies

(CBS/AP)  A New Hampshire truck driver has died after being severely burned during a tanker truck rollover and explosion on I-91 in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Aaron Staelens, 43, died at about 8 p.m. on Friday night, according to a spokeswoman for Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Staelens had been flown to Mass. General after being treated at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield following the wreck Friday morning.

Staelens' tanker crashed into a guardrail and exploded after a car collided with him and he veered to the right, state police said.

The driver of the car, Victor Aponte, 35, was issued a summons on Saturday to face charges including negligent motor vehicle homicide and reckless operation. Attempts to reach Aponte for comment by phone Saturday were unsuccessful.

Staelens worked for Abenaqui Carriers of North Hampton, N.H.

CBS Affiliate WBZ-TV reported that Staelens had suffered third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body when his tanker crashed into a guardrail and exploded after he swerved to avoid a car that had veered into another car in front of him.

In a statement released Saturday, Abenaqui president Paul Marston said everyone at the company was saddened to learn of Staelens' death.

"Aaron has been a respected driver in the tanker truck industry for more than 15 years," he said. "Our thoughts are with Aaron's family during this difficult time."

Attempts to reach members of Staelens' family were not immediately successful on Saturday.

The tanker was carrying 9,500 gallons of gasoline and 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, the company said.

State Police Capt. Barry O'Brien said the accident happened after Aponte entered the highway and lost control of his car after it stalled briefly, then regained momentum. Aponte careered across the road, hitting another car. Aponte's car then hit the tanker, which veered off the road, striking a guardrail and sign post.

The trailer separated from the tanker, rolled over the guardrail and down an embankment as the cab and trailer burst into flames, police said.

Witnesses said several drivers ran to pull Staelens from the burning cab, including some carrying blankets and jackets to smother the flames. But the fire drove everyone back.

O'Brien said Staelens eventually freed himself and ran ablaze through a "ring of fire" around the cab, before police and other drivers put out the flames.

A passenger in Aponte's car received minor injuries in the crash.

The fire burned about 90 minutes after the crash, and smoke could be seen for miles.

[biostudent-2009]

I was born in 86, in Germany. So don''t tell me about Chernobyl. My parents had to vacuum their shoes and cloths every time they came in the house. Nuclear power is perfectly safe if done properly. Chernobyl was a disaster because there were far fewer safety measures than required in the EU or the US. It also didn''t help that the Soviets failed to inform the international community of the situation immediately.

[antizion]

By the way, did you know its safer to live next a to a nuclear power plant than one fired by coal?
Posted by BioStudent at 03:08 PM : Mar 29, 2008
----------------------

Not if the nuclear plant is named Chernobol. Did you it is safer to live far away from both?

[hachiroku_gt]

What in God''s Name is newsterl talking about?!?! What does this line of SPEW have to do with the story? A lot to say about nothing.

[pollroller1]

I would like to offer my condolences to Aaron Staelens
Family.

[iknowbest-2009]

Newster cra*s out a torrent of useless God squad drivel.

YAWN.

[newsterl]

Most people''s homes run on electric 100%, no power means no water, lights, heat or A/C, computer, phones, cooking, fridge, showers, toilet etc. Wouldnt take much to bring about a total collapse and anarchy and its all due to overpopulation and now the dependence on electric and oil which controls and runs EVERYTHING, think about it- even your credit card cant be processed, your bank cant open without electric, scanners, cash registers, gas station pumps, scanners- everything runs on electric- cut the power for any length of time and watch what happens, just look what happened in N.Orleans, especially in the superdome w/o toilets or A/C- that should give a clue.

I predict less than a week for a state-wide power outage would have all those corporate mo fo soccer-mom-dad types who dont even know how to start a fire to cook with without matches, or figure out how to get water out of a non working well head- before they go off the deep end.

We have a society now so dependent on automatic everything, machines and technology that a large number wouldn''t last a week in the wilderness off the grid on whats left of their ''survival skills.''

[newsterl]

We pave over farmland and forests for more houses, roads and malls at a time when we need MORE of both- those two things will have a nasty collision at some point, its inevitable. Either a volcanic eruption, large quakes, war or disease or a combo of all will wipe out significant numbers globally. 200 years ago much of that wouldnt have mattered- there weren''t enough people to make much impact, you didnt have so much riding on ELECTRIC and oil like we do- everything from communication to food and utilities are all dependent on electric or oil, disrupt either for any length and watch the chaos as the financial and business markets collapse, industries collapse, people panic raid supermarkets, of course perishables all spoil with out the fridge- no milk, eggs, cheeze, meat.

[newsterl]

it was the enormous cloud of gas %u2014 some 400 million tons of it %u2014 released by the eruption that produced the "year without summer."

When the gas reacted with water vapor in the atmosphere, it formed tiny little droplets of sulfuric acid that became suspended in the stratosphere, creating a veil over the Earth, Sigurdsson says.

This veil of gas acted like a mirror, bouncing radiation back into space and decreasing the amount of heat that reached the Earth''s surface, causing global cooling, he says.

And something did go wrong in 1816, known as "the year without summer." Temperatures dropped, crops failed and people starved.

"Hundreds of thousands of people died. People were reduced to eating rats and fighting over roots," Webb says. "Most of these people were killed by epidemic disease, [such as] typhus and other things related to starvation. They simply couldn''t find enough food."

In America, New Englanders saw snow well into the summer %u2014 the average temperature in July and August was 5 to 10 degrees below normal, according to Webb.

[newsterl]

as a result of his one man internet commenting efforts, the human race stops breeding.

Posted by IKnowBest "

What is posted on a message board will not change society thats right, but EVENTUALLY the Govt WILL have to step in and control it, or else diseases or some other events will reduce the population FOR us- probably through mass starvation, a widespread plague- now easily spread wildly via air travel to multiple continents- you all breathe the SAME cabin air, or some other means.

With the population we have now, a simple event like a large volcanic eruption- such as the one in Tambora that happened around 1816 which affected climate GLOBALLY for years- with ice and snow in July in New England- the first year was called the summer that wasnt- many thousands starved to death when the crops all failed not once but 2 or 3 times when frost killed the growing crops just before harvest, and again as replacements were started.

Of the cold summers in the period 1811 to 1817, the year 1816 has gone down in the annals of New England history as "The Year There Was No Summer," the ...
www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/1816.htm

The Year Without Summer. The year after Tambora erupted, Europe was trying to cope with the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. There was a ...
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15448607

[biostudent-2009]

Also interesting to note, cigarette smokers expose themselves to 3times the radiation of nonsmokers each year because of the Polonium210 found int he tobacco.