Pahrump Valley Times - Nye County's Largest Newspaper Circulation

Nye County's Largest Circulation Newspaper

CURRENT WEATHER: Clear, 44°

• News
• Opinion
• Sports
• Obituaries
• Archives
• Search

• All Classifieds
• Employment
• Real Estate
• Autos
• Merchandise

• Archive
• Contact Us
• How To Advertise
• Subscriptions

April 29, 2005

GAS TANKER WRECK

Fiery fatal

By ROBIN FLINCHUM
SPECIAL TO THE PVT

SPECIAL TO THE PVT
Rebel Gas truck driver Reginald McElroy lost control of his rig and the fully loaded 8,000-gallon tank he was hauling to Death Valley; both the rig and the tanker exploded. McElroy died at the scene. Lt. Frank Jarvis of the Nye County Sheriff's Office took the photo near the Beatty entrance to the national park.

A Rebel Oil tanker truck went out of control in a curve in Death Valley National Park Tuesday morning, first rolling the tank filled with eight-thousand gallons of gasoline and spilling fuel, then igniting an explosion when the rest of the truck hit the ground.

The driver, 28-year-old Reginald Dewayne McElroy of Las Vegas, was thrown from the vehicle and probably killed on impact, according to the California Highway Patrol. Witnesses traveling behind the ill-fated vehicle said the resulting conflagration happened so fast that it was "like watching a movie," said Death Valley National Park spokesman Terry Baldino.

Other witnesses, some as many as 30 miles away, reported seeing plumes of black smoke from all over the park.

The accident took place around 10:05 a.m. just above the Keene Wonder Mine turnoff on the Beatty Cutoff Road from the Daylight Pass entrance into the park, according to California Highway Patrol officer Brett Osborne.

The Rebel truck was coming from Las Vegas to deliver fuel to the park's maintenance facility at Cow Creek and McElroy was brand new to the route. "It’s a crummy road," said Osborne. "He hit a few dips going too fast and then a curve and lost control."

Osborne said the driver was found under the vehicle and "hopefully died in the crash itself."

After the accident, said Baldino, the Beatty Cutoff Road was shut down while the vehicle fire continued to burn. "There was nothing anyone could do, they just had to let it burn," Baldino said. Local EMT and firefighting crews, as well as a hazardous material team were dispatched to the site, but the fire was so intense, he said, that local firefighters could not even approach it initially. The burn lasted an hour or more, but was out by early afternoon.

"It put up quite a plume of smoke," said Baldino. He added that his wife, who works at the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, some 30 miles from the crash site, saw the smoke, as did workers on the lower portion of Highway 190 and a visitor in Panamint Valley.

The fire burned so hot that it melted pavement around the vehicle, Baldino said, and the Beatty Cutoff Road will remain closed probably until the weekend while CHP completes its investigation and a repair crew arrives to fix the damage.

Some pavement was also broken up by the impact of the crash, said CHP's Osborne. Baldino said Rebel Oil would remove the remains of the vehicle after police completed their investigation. That has occurred.

Reginald McElroy is survived by a wife and four children in Las Vegas, said Inyo County Coroner Robert Franke, and his body will be returned there once identification has been confirmed through a comparison of dental records.