150 Gallons Into a Ditch That Drains to a Creek
04:15 on a two-lane state highway near Brookhaven. Your DOT 406 tanker, loaded with 8,000 gallons of UN1203, GASOLINE, Class 3, PG II, drifts onto the shoulder and strikes a guardrail. The tank rolls onto its right side; the No. 2 dome cover shears off, and you estimate 150 gallons of gasoline have run into a roadside ditch that drains to a creek about 200 feet away. You have a fractured right forearm and an ambulance takes you to the hospital, where you are admitted overnight. The guardrail, the tank and a utility pole are damaged, and the road is closed for three hours. The shipping papers, the ERG and the 24-hour emergency response number are in the cab, which is upright, off the tank and not on fire. No other vehicles are involved.
1. What notifications are required, who makes them, and on what timeline?
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Two reporting streams run at once. The carrier must make immediate notification to the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802 by telephone, and in no case later than 12 hours, under 49 CFR 171.15. The triggers here are that a person was hospitalized, that a reportable quantity of gasoline was released, and that the spill is a continuing danger because it is moving toward a waterway. That call brings in the federal on-scene coordinator and the state environmental agency. Separately, 911 gets fire, EMS and traffic control immediately, and the carrier's 24-hour emergency response contractor gets activated. The written follow-up, DOT Form 5800.1, is due within 30 days under 171.16, applying the same criteria. As the injured driver your job is to notify your carrier as soon as you are able so it can make the NRC call, and to give responders accurate information rather than estimates you cannot support. Say "about 150 gallons, still leaking, draining to a creek," not a guess at total loss.
2. What do you personally do in the first ten minutes at the scene?
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Get clear of the vehicle first. You are injured, the tank is on its side with a sheared dome, and gasoline vapor is heavier than air, so it will crawl along the ditch toward the creek and collect in low spots. Move upwind and uphill, keep bystanders back, and eliminate ignition sources: no smoking, no traffic through the area, no restarting the truck, nothing electrical. Call 911 and state plainly what is leaking, roughly how much, that the ditch drains to a creek 200 feet away, and whether anyone is trapped. Do not try to plug the dome, upright the tank or dig a dam; the product is above you and the vapor-flash risk is high, and you are not trained or equipped for it. Stay at a safe distance until the fire department arrives, then identify yourself as the driver and stay available; leaving the scene before responders arrive creates a legal problem on top of the safety one.
3. What do you hand to responders, and what must you preserve afterward?
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Hand over the shipping paper and the ERG, and open the orange guide page for UN1203 so the guide number, isolation distances and protective-action distances come from the book rather than from memory. Tell them the product, the packaging (DOT 406 cargo tank), the quantity on board and the amount released, plus anything you know about the tank's condition. Keep every document: shipping paper, bill of lading, ERG, your logs and the hours-of-service record, because the carrier needs them for the 5800.1 report, for insurance and for any investigation. Do not rewrite, tidy or discard anything, even a paper that was wrong. Note the time of the crash, the weather, and who arrived when. Give a factual written statement to your carrier and to the investigating officer, and do not speculate about mechanical failure or fault.