Fatal tanker truck crash spreads fuel beneath I-25 in Denver

For the second time in two days, the area of Interstate 25 in and near Denver's Tech Center was the scene of tragedy Thursday. Less than 24 hours after a five-vehicle crash killed state Sen. Faith Winter near Dry Creek, a tanker truck sped down the southbound off-ramp at Yale and crashed into an overpass abutment, killing the driver and spilling massive amounts of fuel.

The tanker began leaking a significant amount of fuel under the light rail bridge near I-25 and Yale Avenue around 1 p.m.

The Denver Police Department said the tanker was the only vehicle involved in the crash, and the driver is deceased. They're still investigating to determine how the crash happened.

"I saw the truck just start coming out of the right side, coming off the highway and then you hear this bang and He hit, took the light down. and then he went over the median in the center, took that light down and then he just plowed straight into the bridge for the train," said Joseph Adler.

Adler and his fiancé were traveling to a family Thanksgiving in Littleton and were stopped at a traffic light westbound on Yale. Adler's dash camera recorded the speeding truck as it passed cars on the off-ramp, driving over the curbing and into the intersection without any apparent slowing.

"I didn't hear any squealing of the tires. I didn't see the truck slow down," Adler said. "It just was going."

A man who lives in the neighborhood, Mattie Bicknell, said he was watching halftime of a Thanksgiving football game when his home shook.

"That was a concussion that moved things off of the wall. So it was most definitely something happened," Bicknell said. "And then I got this smell, before I got out of the house, I could smell it. It was amazing how much fuel was coming down the street." The tanker had ruptured, but somehow fire did not ignite. "It was unfortunate that that fuel went into the storm drain, but that's where it went," said Vicknell. 

The spill temporarily caused a closure on southbound I-25, but it has since reopened. Yale Avenue is closed in both directions, including the on and off ramps for the interstate. It has not affected the light rail service passing over the bridge.

Denver Police said what happened to lead the driver to speed down the off-ramp was under investigation, leaving open the questions of whether the driver had experienced a medical episode or brake failure or something else. Adler said it did not look like the brakes were applied as the truck lunged toward the overpass abutment. "Why he was even on the off-ramp to begin with is kind of what I'm confused about." 

But he did think the driver may have tried to avoid vehicles on the off-ramp as he drove up onto the curbing rather than into a lane of traffic.

"He dodged them obviously because he was like way over, so I don't know what was going through his head, but luckily he didn't hit anybody," Adler said.

He went on to say he and his fiancé were both shaken by the incident. "I'm thankful I made it here," he said of arriving at a Thanksgiving celebration.  "Any moment could be your last, and you just got to live, you know? Make the best of it."