Ohio girl concedes cutting off tanker that spilled chemical last year in Illinois, killing 5

[October 04, 2024]  By JOHN O'CONNOR

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — A federal report on a tanker-truck crash a year ago in central Illinois that spilled a toxic chemical and killed five people includes an interview with a 17-year-old Ohio girl who concedes that the truck was forced off the road when she passed it with the minivan she was driving.

The tanker slowed and pulled to the right to allow the minivan to get back in the right-hand lane and avoid a head-on collision with oncoming traffic on the two-lane U.S. 40 in Teutopolis on Sept. 29, 2023, according to dash-cam video from the truck also released late Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Oh, (expletive). Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yep, totally my bad. Wow. Holy (expletive),” the girl said while watching the video from the ill-fated truck during an Oct. 4, 2023, Illinois State Police interview.

The tanker truck was carrying caustic anhydrous ammonia when it jack-knifed and hit a utility trailer parked just off the highway. The trailer's hitch punctured the tank, spilling about half of the 7,500-gallon (28,390-liter) load about 8:40 p.m. just west of Teutopolis, a community about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis.

Five people died as a result, including three family members who were near the road when the incident occurred. About 500 people were evacuated for hours after the accident to spare them exposure to the hazardous plume from the chemical used by farmers to add nitrogen fertilizer to the soil and in large buildings as a refrigerant.

The transportation board said its latest findings are merely a factual account and do not include analysis or conclusions, which are expected later.

The Illinois State Police conducted its own investigation, and spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said the department turned over its findings last month to Effingham County State's Attorney Aaron Jones. A message seeking comment from Jones was left at his office Thursday.

The girl, whose name is redacted in the transcript of the state police interview because she was a minor at the time, said she was traveling with her mother and brother to visit her mother's boyfriend in the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis. An accident on Interstate 70 earlier that night diverted loads of traffic onto U.S. 40, and she said she passed three trucks on the road heading west into Teutopolis.

Emergency responders set up a staging area near Teutopolis High School, Sept. 30, 2023, in Teutopolis, Ill. (Jeff Long/Effingham Daily News via AP, File)

The girl said her pass of the tanker began in a passing zone, although a no-passing sign appears in the video. She said once she began passing, she realized she needed to accelerate to clear oncoming traffic and estimated she was going 90 mph when she pulled back to the right, narrowly slipping by an oncoming vehicle. She told investigators her mother was upset by the close call, but she thought she had plenty of clearance.

However, she declined the police interviewers' offer to show the dash-cam video again.

“No, you don't have to. It was totally my fault,” the girl said. “I've honestly in the past had times when I just don't use good judgment in judging like distances and whether I have enough time for something.”

Attempting to give the minivan space to get over, the truck moved onto the shoulder, lost traction on gravel and then hit a drainage culvert, according to the truck driver, who survived. Continuing west, the girl said she soon saw emergency vehicles coming coming east but did not connect them with her passing the truck.

She said that before the family's return trip to Ohio, when her mother was reading aloud news accounts of the crash, she had no idea it had happened.

“Of course not,” she told investigators. “I told you that like three times."

When one of the investigators expressed disbelief that no one in the car noticed a truck turning over behind them, she doubled down.

“Nobody said, ‘Oh, the guy behind you drove off the road,’ ” the girl said. “That would've been a huge deal for everybody. We would've been like, ‘Oh, (expletive), I just caused something really bad to happen,' and then like our whole night would’ve been figuring out” what to do.

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