Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 4, 1993 TAG: 9302040238
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS Staff Writer
DATELINE: STAFFORDSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
TRUCKER HURT IN 2ND WRECK ON SAME SPOT
A truck hauling lime pellets tumbled down a steep embankment off Virginia 100 on Wednesday, seriously injuring its driver.The circumstances were virtually identical to a wreck three months earlier at the same spot involving the same company, Southern Bulk Haulers.
In both accidents, tankers ran off the steep, winding two-lane road in Giles County and down the same embankment.
Enza Kirk was in her mother-in-law's living room, about 100 yards from the road, looking at pictures of the earlier wreck when Wednesday's accident occurred around 2:30 p.m.
"I had just laid them down when I heard the noise. I looked through the window and saw [the tanker] running off the road," she said.
"I let out a yell and called police. It was scary, I tell you."
A spokesman for Southern Bulk Haulers identified the driver as Brian Morris, 33, of Bluefield, W.Va.
Morris, who had arm, leg and internal injuries, was trapped in the overturned truck's cab.
He was transported by Life-Guard 10 helicopter to Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he was undergoing surgery Wednesday night.
The truck fell 175 feet, jackknifed around a tree and smashed into a shed where the Kirks store tack equipment.
It landed about 20 yards from Wabash Creek, which runs along the base of the embankment.
Unlike the earlier accident, none of the tanker's contents escaped from the truck.
In the Nov. 1 accident, powdered lime spilled into Wabash Creek and caused a limited fish kill when the substance raised the stream's pH level.
Then, the spill was quickly contained, but it took about two weeks to remove the tanker, Kirk said. "It was a mess."
The stretch of Virginia 100 is used by as many as 30 Southern Bulk Haulers tankers per day, carrying lime from quarries to Interstate 81.
The tanker that crashed Wednesday was headed from APG Lime Corp. in Ripplemead to South Carolina.
"It's a rolling road out there. They go through one curve and into another. The road pitches and that throws the trucks," said an employee of Southern Bulk Haulers who declined to be identified.
State police said the accident was under investigation, although speed was an apparent factor.
Kirk said accidents aren't common along Virginia 100 above her mother-in-law's place - about 1.5 miles south of that road's intersection with Virginia 42 at Poplar Hill - except when it comes to Southern Bulk Haulers tankers.
The driver involved in the earlier accident, 30-year-old Carl T. Bennett of Hinton, W.Va., was paralyzed from the waist down after he was thrown from the vehicle into the icy creek, authorities said.
Officials of Southern Bulk Haulers could not be reached for comment at the company's headquarters in South Carolina.
Staff writers Madelyn Rosenberg and Kathy Loan contributed to this story.