By Randy Mitchell
The Ada Evening News, Okla.
UNION VALLEY, Okla. — A Texas man died after a head-on collision with a semi truck Tuesday.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper James McKee said Robert E. Jent, 56, of Richardson, Texas, was driving a 2007 GMC Yukon Denali west on State Highway 3 when the accident happened at 10:48 a.m.
McKee said Jent crossed the center line and slammed head-on into a semi truck driven by 58-year-old Perry Conley Jr. of Pauls Valley.
The SUV overturned onto its side and slid off the road.
Firefighters worked furiously to free Jent who was pinned in the wreckage for nearly one hour. Several hydraulic cutting and prying tools were used to remove the roof from the SUV.
Ada Assistant Fire Chief Chris Sutton — in charge of incident command — said it was an extremely difficult extrication.
“It was compromised by a fire at the same time and transport,” Sutton said. “MediFlight could not come to the scene because of weather.”
During the accident, the fuel tanks on the semi truck ruptured, spilling diesel on the highway. The semi rolled off the highway and caught fire.
When firefighters arrived, the cab of the semi was fully engulfed in flames. Massive amounts of thick, black smoke billowed from the burning wreckage.
Firefighters braved intense heat and worked quickly to douse the flames, which were dangerously close to the multiple compartment tanker filled with 3,000 gallons of gasoline and 6,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
Sutton said firefighters risked their lives to put the fire out because if the tanker would have exploded, the result to all those at the scene would have been devastating.
“If the fire had gotten any larger and the tanker had been compromised, no one would have been in a safe area,” Sutton said. “So the boys had to stay hooked. I cannot say enough for the firefighters and what they did on that, fighting the fire and doing the extrication at the same time.
“If the boys couldn’t contain the fire, and we’d have had an explosion, the result would have been bad for everyone.”
Firefighters from Ada, Union Valley, Stonewall, Lula and Byng extinguished the flames within minutes but continued to pump water onto the cab and the tanker to cool it down and make sure there were no flare -ups.
Jent was taken by Valley View EMS to Valley View Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead from massive injuries.
The highway was closed for seven hours while crews cleaned up debris which scattered in all directions during the wreck. Environmental cleanup crews were called in to clean up the diesel fuel and battery acid spilled on the roadway.
Copyright 2008