Countywide : Truck’s Fuel Leak Causes Accidents

A big rig with a ruptured fuel line left a slippery, seven-mile trail of diesel fuel Wednesday morning on the southbound San Diego Freeway, causing a rash of traffic accidents, the California Highway Patrol said.

Jose Angel Perez Gonzalez, 33, of Long Beach, was driving a 1980 Freightliner south on the freeway about 5:45 a.m. near the Brookhurst Avenue exit when a tire on the roadway hit one of the truck’s fuel lines, CHP Officer Angel Johnson said.

Diesel fuel poured out of the truck until it stopped at the MacArthur Boulevard exit, Johnson said. The driver was not cited, she said.

Although the truck lost only about 15 gallons of fuel, Johnson said, the spill caused at least six traffic accidents, three of them involving overturned cars. There were several minor injuries.

“Everything happened pretty much at the same time,” Johnson said. “It was a mess.”

The spill also caused traffic delays of more than an hour, as CHP units responded to the various accidents and Caltrans crews spread sand on the roadway to sop up the fuel, Johnson said.

Rush-hour traffic on the southbound freeway was backed up from Fairview Road to the Garden Grove Freeway until at least 7 a.m., Johnson said.

At Brookhurst Avenue, a seven-car pileup at 5:45 a.m. triggered three other accidents as commuters began filing onto the freeway, CHP Officer Kyle Whitten said.

A three-car accident south of Bolsa Avenue, a two-car accident south of Newland Street and a hit-and-run accident involving a car and a motorcycle occurred minutes after the Brookhurst Avenue pileup, Whitten said.

Other accidents at Harbor Boulevard, Bristol Street and Fairview Road further complicated the morning commute, Johnson said, as officers barely arrived at the scene of one collision before hearing about another one.