Two Arizona truck wash employees die in hazmat incident.

Chemical identified in tanker cleaning incident that left two dead, four injured

 

I don't get it. Sniffer or no sniffer, placard or no placard, you don't get in the f'n trailer until it's verified what's been in there. And besides, who tf gets INSIDE trailers anymore? By the sound of the latest finding re the actual chemical, it wasn't a multi compartment tank, so why the need to even get inside?
Quala or Express guys know this. This place obviously was not setup to deal with cleanouts properly and by the book. Tank wash guys have it bad enough as it is. Hope they shut this place down.

 

We haul this HaHS (sodium hydrosulfide) crap and its some stinky nasty crap. Why the placards where pulled before the trailer was actually clean is something to be answered for sure in their investigation, you can smell that its nasty crap needing a respirator or some sort of clean air supply before entering the trailer. In fact the closest tank wash that will wash the trailers out for us is Salt Lake City.

 

After checking out a few directories it seems Danny's is the only game in Arizona for tank washes. One there and one in Phoenix.

 

It obviously falls on the tank wash crew and facility but the carrier needs to be held just as much as responsible for these deaths as they most likely tried pulling a fast one to get their trailer cleaned. We haul NaHS from Montana to the Oregon coast and there’s 4 tanker washout facilities within a 4 hour drive of our customer but none of them will touch a trailer with this crap in it. Hauling hazmat is like doing OSOW in the fact that to gotta plan ALL aspects of the haul down to the very last detail.

 

So much for the nitrogen theory. OSHA is going to have a field day with this!

 

Yeah I didn't want to say that initially but you're right. Would like to know more about the carrier. My only thoughts at this point is how much the driver knew about possible heel or clingage in the tank and if this is why they possibly went to this wash instead of somewhere else that was possibly more qualified to deal with the disposal. Don't know just guessing. More than likely the delivery point didn't allow for checking heel inside facility and driver just assumed it was empty not that fumes from residue can't kill just as easily as an overage of heel that coulda been discharged.

 

I deadheaded a lot of miles to get to tank washes when I hauled chemicals, especially out west. A lot of times the choice was SLC or Richmond, CA. The two on the north end of Portland / south end of Vancouver wouldn't always take certain products. The only one in Denver closed as far as I know. I don't recall any in Arizona, but I may never have needed one when I was near there.

 

Nitrogen blankets are common in some foodgrade tank loads.

It keeps sensitive products from oxidizing in transit, such as some high-value vegetable oils.

It is usually printed on the BOL if nitrogen blanketed.

If I drop a nitrogen blanketed trailer, I tag it on the dome and the pump box with a bright orange cardboard tag and write "Warning nitrogen blanket" on it.

This incident is exactly why.

RIP guys.

 

https://s2.q4cdn.com/255514451/file...ollyFrontier-ISS-SDS-GHS-United-States....pdf

This is an SDS for what they determined was in the trailer. Some pretty nasty crap and its a class 8 corrosive.