Quick-Thinking Truck Driver Being Praised For His Actions

A quick-thinking driver in Canada is being credited with avoiding potential disaster on Highway 1 in Tobiano, British Columbia.

On Thursday afternoon, the cab of truck driver Rod Cardinal’s truck caught on fire.  Cardinal was hauling a load of ammonium nitrate.  The quick-thinking driver jumped from his burning cab, unhooked the trailer, jumped back into the burning cab and moved it a safe distance from the trailer.

Cardinal said he moved the cab as far away from the load as he could, all while fighting the smoke and flames in the cab of his truck.

“For him to actually take the time and the effort and put himself sort of in the line of danger to move his truck really saved things from possibly escalating to something a lot worse,” Tobiano Golf Resort volunteer fire chief Paul McDonald told CFJCTV.

The cab of the truck was completely destroyed by the fire, but the trailer and the load was safe from the fire.

According to McGraw-Hill, “Heating or any ignition source may cause violent combustion or explosion. Ammonium nitrate reacts with combustible and reducing materials as it is a strong oxidant. Although it is mainly used for fertilizer, it can be used for explosives. It was sometimes used to blast away earth to make farm ponds.”

Sources:

CFJCTV

McGraw-Hill