By JOSEPH KELLARD
The unmanned truck, carrying a roll-off dumpster, struck a utility pole and chain-link fence, and finally crashed into the racks of the Sprague Energy fuel depot -- where large gas trucks fill up -- on Hampton Road, at about 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18.
The truck's own diesel tank was punctured in the crash and leaked fuel, and firefighters from the Oceanside Fire Department blanketed the area with foam to stop fumes from escaping.
"The truck took down a light pole and fence and careened to the corner of the rack system," said Chief John Traverso of the OFD. "Thank God they weren't fueling anybody at that time. With static electricity and if one of the wires had fallen, there probably could have been a huge explosion."
After the Long Island Power Authority cut the power, the truck was removed about three hours after it crashed.
Assisting the OFD were firefighters from East Rockaway, Long Beach and Baldwin, and Nassau County's HazMat, Emergency Service Unit and fire marshal were on the scene.
According to police, the truck driver injured his back (though the severity of his injury was unknown to them), and was airlifted by a Nassau County police helicopter to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow.
"It was a freak accident," said a spokesman for County Carting, the business at 3550 Hampton Road that owns the truck, who declined to give his name or position at the company. "We're lucky he's alive, and he'll be OK."
The spokesman declined to comment on the cause of the accident, and police were unable to provide a cause. The Herald was unable to reach Sprague Energy on Monday.
Oceanside: Home of crashes?
By JOSEPH KELLARD
Oceanside, it seems, has a penchant for auto accidents involving other vehicles, buildings or other structures.
The recent crash of an unmanned truck into a gas depot on Hampton Road recalls one of the most dangerous accidents in that area in recent years. Early in the morning of April 24, 2001, a gasoline tanker making a left turn onto Daly Boulevard from Hampton Road turned on its side and smashed into a cement retaining wall and metal guardrail. More than 2,000 gallons of gasoline spilled from the ruptured truck, spreading throughout the immediate area and funneling into a storm drain that fed into Hog Island Channel. The vehicle, owned by Hess Company, was loaded with approximately 11,000 gallons of gas.
Before local fire departments and governmental agencies sprayed foam to stop the fuel from spreading and cleaned it up, the Long Island Rail Road had stopped all service to its Long Beach Branch, and it was restored only after a cleanup that afternoon.
Among the other accidents in Oceanside in recent years were those involving a drag racer who killed an innocent man and himself along Lawson Boulevard; a speeding motorcylist who was killed when he slammed into and overturned a car along that same thoroughfare; a man who veered a midsized furniture truck into Nathan's storefront in spring 2002; drunk and sober motorists barreling through the Oceanside Triangle; a driver who crashed into a parked sanitation truck after workers lunged from his errant path; a high school student who flipped his car across two properties along Marlborough Road, and, most recently, an inexperienced driver who had trouble with her brake pedal and found herself inside Blockbuster Video on Long Beach Road.
