Gibson Co. highway shut down after nitrogen and diesel fuel spill

GIBSON COUNTY, Tenn. — Around 10 o’clock Saturday morning, Gibson county officials say an 18-wheeler carrying liquid nitrogen slid off the road.

It happened in between Dyer and Bradford, where Highway 185 meets Oragoad Road. When the truck overturned, first responders say a mixture of liquid nitrogen and diesel fuel spilled into a homeowners yard. Firefighters are working to stop the spill from reaching a cow field behind the home.

“This is a bad s curve and it appears that he got off the right side of the road and over corrected and rolled the truck it’s spilling liquid nitrogen out the top, there was a small puncture hole in the top,” Captain Bryan Cathey with the Dyer City Fire Department said.

The driver of the truck was transported by EMS to the hospital in Milan.

Hazmat and the local co-op cleaned up the spill.

“We are damming up the spill and keeping it out of the pond and the farm animals so everything should  be ok,” Captain Cathey said.

Officials say this is just a minor irritant, and poses no danger to the community. However, the highway was shut down for most of the day.

The homeowner says he has four kids who play in this yard all the time, and he had just told them they could go out and play when the accident happened.

“I head like the horns blowing and then when I got up and look outside that’s when I noticed it,” homeowner Steven Whitney said.

Officials said the crash was a “best case scenario.

“The truck was only half loaded so there was only lie 2,500 gallons of liquid nitrogen on there which is also a good thing so everything is under control at this time, there’s no damage to the house there is no environmental damage,” Captain Cathey said.