Emergency crews responded to an overturned truck at the intersection of Tarrtown Road and the Kittanning Citizens Bridge yesterday afternoon.
by Jonathan Weaver
A driver was taken to a local hospital, but nobody was hurt after a truck rollover on Butler Road between Applewold Borough and East Franklin Township yesterday afternoon.
According to Pennsylvania State Police troopers from the Kittanning barracks, Titus Cherry, 42 of Baltimore, Maryland, was driving a 2013 International Harvester before Tarrtown Road, but he was traveling too fast near the entrance to Applewold Borough and flipped over, striking a 2001 Chevrolet Silverado stopped at the Tarrtown Road stop sign.
Cherry was released shortly after being transported to the hospital via Kittanning #6 EMS.
The Chevrolet Silverado driver - William Steele, 51 of Smicksburg - was not injured on-scene.
Several Sheriff’s Department officers, State and Kittanning Borough Police officers and East Franklin Township and Applewold Borough volunteer firefighters flooded to the scene.
East Franklin Township Fire Chief Mark Feeney told other volunteers that he could hear the accident from his house a few blocks away.
He said Cherry was able to self-extricate himself from the vehicle.
“He was able to crawl out of there,” Chief Feeney said.
Chief Feeney and Armstrong County Hazmat Coordinator Bill Hamilton said units responded to the scene due to an unknown substance Cherry was hauling.
“He was hauling mineral oil - a non-hazardous mineral oil base - in a big bladder inside the vehicle. Just a steel cage with a cardboard surrounding with a liner - that of course split open and we put 5-6,000 gallons of mineral oil in the river,” Chief Feeney said. “It’s non-hazardous - it will evaporate off once the sun hits it sooner-or-later.”
Water companies in the Alle-Kiski Valley were still contacted.
Weavertown Environmental officials - based in Bridgeville - and Department of Environmental Protection officials were also on-scene.
The International Harvester was owned by TCI Trucking and Warehousing in Baltimore. Messages to the company after the incident were not immediately returned.
Cherry is to be charged with speeding.
Kochka Towing from Vandergrift worked with several trucks to upright the International Harvester. Despite the significant damage and both vehicles having to be towed from the scene, neither driver was injured in the crash that snarled traffic for hours.