Driver In Fiery Mass.Tanker Crash Dies

Driver Of The Car That Collided With The Tanker Truck Will Face Charges

(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.

[biostudent-2009]

Wow, bad grammar on my last post. Any who, @inkowbest, you are taking by comments too literally. Though I like the idea of a hydrogen car, it doesn''t mean I''m certain that its the solution. I think the most important thing we do is keep our minds open to new ideas, explore them, and throw them away if they don''t work. But sitting back and saying everything is fine and that we don''t need new technologies worries me.
By the way, did you know its safer to live next a to a nuclear power plant than one fired by coal?

[biostudent-2009]

Er, had that wrong. Got my microbes mixed up. The acid byproduct from the anaerobic respiration produces CO2, alcohol, and some acid that I can''t remember. But if i recall correctly, the increased acidity in their environment kills them.

[biostudent-2009]

@newsterl
I agree with you completely about our population. But telling people not to breed is like telling them not to drive their cars. People enjoy their current lifestyles too much to change. I have accepted the fact that we, as humans, will kill this planet and just about everything on it that we can.
Watching time laps photography of our cities is like watching a plate of bacteria grow until it eats all the food and dies.
How do you think they carbonate beer? They add yeast to the bottle right before they cap it, the yeast then eat the sugars (aerobically) until the oxygen in the bottle runs out and they die. The products of this are CO2 and alcohol.

[iknowbest-2009]

Okay, the second act has taken the stage. Yes, that''s real likely - as a result of his one man internet commenting efforts, the human race stops breeding. It''s not as if people like to have ***, is it? Go sit with hydrogen car boy.

[newsterl]

"I realize hydrogen ...that most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels. ..and we will need variety of fuels to replace petroleum.

Posted by BioStudent "

THERES the problem, no matter what fuels we come up with it still take fossil fuels to make it or transport it, doesnt matter if its electric, nuclear that requires uranium be mined, transported, processed, hydrogen requiring power to split the water, or solar panels that require making glass, metal components etc for them.
The solution is not trying to come up with MORE power or different power, the root of all the problems we have today is TOO MANY PEOPLE in a finite environment- one cannot escape that fact! Obviously the solution is not more technology but reductions in the birth rate.

We had 150 million in 1950, its over 305 million now, this growth simply cannot continue indefinitely no matter what technology comes up with.
We need to reduce the birth and immigration until we go back to around the population of the 1950''s
Till there are NONE in foster care adopt ONE, dont breed!

[nothappyatall]

I am not really interested in the thing, however, i want to date a sheep just
because i lost my girl. Days ago i saw a site wealthy-SHEEP.c o m. Is it true?
is it useful for someone who lost his sheep friend?

Posted by hardy20086 "

Yeah we know you arent interested in ''the thing'' (the article) you say that about every article you come in to SPAM us with your stupid dating site url. Reporting as dating site SPAM now.

[iknowbest-2009]

Some people here need to avoid the name calling. It doesn''''t solve anything to call people stupid. I happen to dislike our current neoconservatives in office; I like the idea of a hydrogen powered car because water is given off as the product. I realize hydrogen is not a fuel source, but rather a storage medium; and that most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels. But its very not likely that there will be a silver bullet for our energy needs of the future, and we will need variety of fuels to replace petroleum.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by BioStudent at 09:32 PM : Mar 28, 2008


Get over yourself. You proposed an idea, it was criticized, and now you whine about it. You must be a lot of fun in class. Your proposal was called stupid, not you. And it IS stupid. If this is how you react every time you get your eyes opened by the truth - that you''re being duped by the very people you claim to be against, then life after school is going to be a real treat. Stay in school, it''s safer.

[cyberus-2009]

-----
Some people here need to avoid the name calling. It doesn''''t solve anything to call people stupid. I happen to dislike our current neoconservatives in office; I like the idea of a hydrogen powered car because water is given off as the product. I realize hydrogen is not a fuel source, but rather a storage medium; and that most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels. But its very not likely that there will be a silver bullet for our energy needs of the future, and we will need variety of fuels to replace petroleum.

Posted by BioStudent at 09:32 PM : Mar 28, 2008
-----

IMO what we need is to find ways of generating power, be it horsepower or electrical that doesn''t GENERATE HEAT!
We keep talking about global warming and greenhouse gases while everything we do generates MORE HEAT. From ethanol to nuclear power it all generates MORE HEAT cuz one way or another we''re still burning something to produce heat to turn a generator or transmission.
IMO more focus needs to be placed on finding alternatives to generating heat for power, when we do that the greenhouse gas problem will self-correct since we won''t be burning stuff for power and creating the gases

[biostudent-2009]

Some people here need to avoid the name calling. It doesn''t solve anything to call people stupid. I happen to dislike our current neoconservatives in office; I like the idea of a hydrogen powered car because water is given off as the product. I realize hydrogen is not a fuel source, but rather a storage medium; and that most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels. But its very not likely that there will be a silver bullet for our energy needs of the future, and we will need variety of fuels to replace petroleum.

[newsterl]

"As a former employee of Air Products (makers of liquid hydrogen for NASA), I have seen safety videos of gas tankers and hydrogen tankers exploding.
Liquid Hydrogen on the otherhand ignites and explodes violently and consumes all the liquid within minutes. Compressed hydrogen would burn like a blow torch as no oxygen can get into the tank.
Posted by csmith1948"

There you go, Id take the word of an employee in the industry with far more weight. As CS and I both know, a tank full of compressed gas is different than LIQUIFIED compressed gas. The former would not amount to much fuel- it''s like a room full of steam v/s a room full of WATER, you cant compress the gas enough to make its volume worth hauling @ $4 a gallon down the highway, so it is LIQUIFIED and it only stays liquid due to tremendous pressure, when or as the pressure is released the liquid BOILS like water on the stove. Ive seen references to 350#/sq inch, multiply that by 144 in a foot and that comes out to around 50,000 pounds of pressure inside that tank on every square foot trying to get out!

A maker of composite tanks published this;

"announced today that it is the first to demonstrate an all-composite hydrogen storage tank that stores hydrogen at 10,000 psi" thats one million, four hundred and fourty thousand pounds of pressure on every square foot inside that tank.

There is no pressure tank that is 100% failsafe.