Carnage on Oklahoma Turnpike

Update, Sunday 7:00 pm: A 10th victim has died, only two survivors remaining.

A FRIDAY AFTERNOON PILEUP ON THE WILL ROGERS TURNPIKE in Oklahoma left 9 10 people dead in what experienced troopers called the worst vehicle accident they had ever seen.

Oklahoma Turnpike Deaths

Tulsa World / Crow photo

The victims’ ages ranged from 7 to 69 and all of them died at the scene. A 76-yr.-old tractor-trailer driver, Donald Creed, is being blamed for the wreck. The Tulsa World summarizes what happened:

According to troopers, all the vehicles were eastbound on Interstate 44 when Creed failed to slow down as he came to an area of the turnpike where traffic was at a standstill. His rig struck a sports utility vehicle, knocking it into a ditch. Creed’s truck continued east, slamming into another vehicle and causing a chain reaction that involved four other vehicles.

Witnesses described the sport utility vehicle as being so mangled that it could barely be identified as a vehicle.

Creed’s truck eventually came to rest on top of three vehicles, pinning the drivers and passengers for up to nine hours.

will-rogers-b-tulsa-world-crow

Tulsa World / Crow photo

The ninth victim of the crash wasn’t found until several hours later when a tow-truck was finally able to lift the tractor off of the car that it had come to rest on. Rescue workers were kept on the scene for many hours because it was not known if or how many more people were entrapped.

KRJH-TV has this video report:

The turnpike’s eastbound lanes were closed for hours after the accident, which occurred near the border with Missouri and Kansas. Stalled traffic baked in 100-degree weather and emergency crews delivered water to some stranded motorists.

Some got out of their vehicles and walked along the highway shoulder while they waited. Workers from a nearby casino brought bottled water, and emergency officials brought a tanker truck to spray people.

KOTV has a good aerial video of the crash scene HERE.

The Tulsa World has a recent, updated report HERE.

Share and Post on Facebook, Twitter and More:

Featured from across Fire/EMS

Barbara Peduzzi

Firegeezer, sorry to turn your blog into a discussion about trucks! Chatter, yeah, railroads are part of the answer, there is a place for trailers on trains. But from the looks of this truck - day cab, the lettering on the trailer - it appears this is a local delivery truck, which trains can't do.
Bottom line, as long as people keep wanting stuff, there will be trucks on the road. Human error is a large part of it, on both sides. Can't tell you how many times I was forced to save the butt of someone making a stupid move around my truck. Also can't tell you how many times distraction might have gotten me into trouble. When I learned to drive they told me the biggest cause of accidents is 'driver inattention', and that's a fact. No way to tell what kept this guy from reacting when and how he could have.
Some places have signs warning 'wreck ahead' or 'stopped traffic ahead'. I know it takes time to get those out and in place, and that takes me back to deploying a patrol car to warn oncoming traffic. Law enforcement being what it is, I don't see that happening. Another sigh.

Chatter

This is a good point. A block of traffic stopped cold on a highway IS a serious hazard. Highways were not desighned for that, and having vehicles up to 80,000 lbs along with cars/personal trucks of 2500-6000 just doesn't match. Even a Suburban is a fly when hit by the largest rigs at full load. Even a more typical semi, weighing ??? perhaps 40,000 is not compatible with car traffic.

This is a challenging situation even for a driver with enough rest and not mesmerized by highway boredom or other distractions. This driver obviously blew it; he could at least have started braking 100 yards back and perhaps gotten around the stopped traffic. But there will ALWAYS be human error; we gotta change the way our roads work so that ONE error does not have such large consequences.

Railroads could carry the trailers for long trips, but the railroads charge too much, lose loads and take too long, so shippers stay with individual trucks. We gotta find a better way.

Barbara Peduzzi

Two multiple fatal accidents within two days, and all the reporting and comment emphasizes that they were caused by big trucks. As a former big truck driver who has come close to this same situation (come to think of it, I was actually involved in one but that's another story), and who has also had a friend killed by an identical one, I'd like to shift some of the blame.
Both the recent wrecks, and the one closer to me, took place when traffic was stopped for previous incidents. If you've ever been surprised by a vehicle stopped in front of you when driving your car (or fire truck, ambulance, pick-up, SUV, whatever) you know the drill: "Ohmigawd, that car's stopped! I gotta take my foot off the gas and put it on the brake - I gotta pull to the left/right to avoid it. I gotta hope my car stops in time!" Most of the time you can avoid a crash. You're probably usually driving a vehicle that weighs a couple of tons, and even at 60 or more mph, you can stop it fairly soon.
A big truck, fully loaded, can legally weigh up to 80,000 pounds - 40 tons. And even with 'those great big brakes' that weight and inertia take at least the length of a football field to stop. Probably more, given the speed limit on that road is I think 70 mph. Simple physics, folks.
Law enforcement should know this, maybe some of them do. So why, whyinhell, don't they put a warning car or lights, signs, whatever, at a point before the stopped traffic and yes, keep moving it as the stationary vehicles build up, to warn oncoming traffic? Safety of those working at the scene is a top priority, why isn't safety of those held hostage by the scene?
How many of us have been on a scene and observed multiple law enforcement personnel standing around playing pocket pool, doing nothing to protect anybody? Surely there's a better deployment of that resource to perhaps save a life - or five, or nine?
When discussing the incident where my friend was killed (where there was no wreck, traffic was stopped by the troopers because there was a person threatening to jump off a high bridge) with a trooper, I asked why they couldn't have kept one of the three lanes on the bridge open to let traffic through, she (yes I said she) replied (in the 'I'm the trooper therefore I know' tone that we've all experienced hearing) 'Do you know how many accidents that could cause!" Another person in the conversation answered 'Seems to me what you did, did cause one.' Hmm-she had no answer to that.
So I want to shift some of the blame to all those people who don't do anything to protect the innocent bystanders - the stopped traffic. Let people know there's traffic stopped ahead - can't be that hard to figure out how. Is it an idea that might save lives? I think so. Is it ever gonna happen? I doubt it. Sigh.
Sympathy to all those involved in those horrific wrecks: the victims and their close ones, the truck drivers who now have to live with what happened under their wheels, and the responders who have to deal with it, hope they have good support teams.