Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 7, 1990 TAG: 9006070132
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Two men from Maryland and a man from Timberville in Rockingham County were killed.
State Trooper D.T. Gaskins said two of the men were killed instantly and were pronounced dead at the scene. Rescue workers were unable to save the third man, who died as the Life-Guard 10 helicopter waited nearby to take him to Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
State police identified the dead men as Louis John Brandenberg, 29, of Glen Burnie, Md.; Joseph Smith, 67, of Pasadena, Md.; and Richard William Johns, 29, of Timberville.
The wreck occurred about 5:30 a.m. between Exits 36 and 37 in Montgomery County.
The highway was shut down for nearly two hours and traffic was rerouted through Christiansburg on U.S. 11.
"This is definitely the worst I've seen," said one highway worker, who asked not to be named.
The tanker truck was being driven by Smith and was headed north while the tractor-trailer being driven by Johns was traveling south, Gaskins said.
The tanker crossed the median and became airborne before striking the other truck head-on. The trailer of the other truck split open and spilled hundreds of frozen chickens onto the highway.
Police said Smith may have fallen asleep.
"I'd say that's probably a good chance of what happened," Gaskins said.
Brandenberg apparently had been dozing in the sleeper section in the rear of the tanker's cab, police said.
The tanker had been carrying aluminum chloride, "but fortunately it was empty," Gaskins said. Crews still treated it cautiously in case any of the hazardous material remained in the tanker, he said.
Rescue crews had to pry open both cabs to remove the bodies, which were taken to the morgue at Community Hospital in Roanoke.
An autopsy had been scheduled for late Wednesday or today on the driver of the tanker truck to rule out the possibility of a heart attack, state police First Sgt. Larry McMahon said.
Dr. William Massello of the state medical examiner's office for the Western District said that since the tanker truck crossed the highway and apparently caused the wreck, they would check to see if Smith had any medical problems or whether drugs or alcohol were involved.
Gears, tires and chunks of metal from both trucks were strewn for 100 yards up and down the highway. Crews cleared one lane of the highway and tossed sand onto spilled diesel fuel to allow one lane of traffic to get through.
At 8 a.m., a front-end loader was called in to load hundreds of spilled chickens onto another truck.
The tanker truck was owned by American Tanker Transportation Inc. in Elkridge, Md., outside Baltimore.
The tractor-trailer was owned by H&R Trucking in Dayton, Ohio. The company could not be reached.
by CNB