Tanker Truck Crash Closes Ventura Freeway in Camarillo

A tanker truck carrying about 6,500 gallons of liquid nitrogen flipped over early Tuesday on the Ventura Freeway, snarling rush hour traffic and closing a portion of the freeway for two hours.

Although the leaking tanker truck with its cloud of white gas did not present a significant health threat, authorities shut down all northbound lanes of the freeway from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and temporarily evacuated a nearby fast-food restaurant.

California Highway Patrol investigators late Tuesday were looking for a San Fernando Valley man whose black Mercedes Benz allegedly was seen cutting off the Air Liquide tanker truck, causing the accident near Carmen Drive.

John Vieira was on his way to work in Ventura when he saw the skirmish between the Mercedes and the truck. He said the tanker was trying to pass the car but the Mercedes driver kept cutting him off.

That happened at least three times in the slower lanes, Vieira said. Finally, the truck moved into the slow lane to pass when the Mercedes cut him off. The truck swerved onto the shoulder of the freeway, fishtailed and rolled over, said Vieira, who watched the crash in his rear-view mirror.

“It was pretty damn crazy. It was like watching a movie scene,” said Vieira, a Malibu resident who was on his way to work as a plumber. He slowed down at first, then realized that the driver of the Mercedes was not doing the same.

“I saw him hauling by me, so I had to speed up,” he said. “I actually ended up chasing him, but he got off the freeway at the next exit and ended up running a light.”

Vieira saw a police officer handling an unrelated accident on the street and stopped to give him the information--including the Mercedes’ license plate number, registered to a man in the San Fernando Valley.

After the accident, Felix Dari, who works at the Shell station next to the Carmen Drive off-ramp, said she watched the driver crawl out of the truck.

“He looked fine, but still they took him to the hospital,” Dari said.

Not knowing exactly what was in the truck, CHP officers closed down the freeway, Officer Dave Webb said.

“It’s a precaution that we take until we know exactly what is in the tanker,” Webb said.

Although the liquid nitrogen did not present a health risk, officers were concerned that the chemical cloud emitted from the tanker could drift into traffic lanes and obscure visibility, Webb said.

The CHP closed the northbound lanes for two hours, backing up traffic for about four miles, while a Ventura County hazardous materials team assessed the danger, he said. The freeway was reopened shortly after 9 a.m., but one northbound lane and the Carmen Drive offramp remained closed until 2 p.m.

The biggest problem faced by emergency workers was getting some of the 40,000 pounds of liquid nitrogen pumped out of the tanker so the truck could be set back on its wheels, said Sandi Wells, a Ventura County Fire Department spokeswoman. Workers opened a vent to allow the inert and harmless chemical to escape as a white vapor cloud, Wells said.

By about 1:30 p.m. a large crane was used to right the truck, and a half-hour later the vehicle was towed away.

Because the liquid nitrogen is very cold, Caltrans kept the off-ramp closed after the truck was removed because the chemical left a large icy slick on the road, Wells said.

After the accident, traffic investigators interviewed the driver of the truck, Rodney Engelholm, 36, and several other witnesses, Webb said. Engelholm was treated for minor injuries and returned to the scene briefly before being driven home.

The truck had been headed to the nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo County. Liquid nitrogen has many uses but was probably going to be used for welding at the plant, said Karl Bruskotter, an accident investigator for Air Liquide.

Times photographer Steve Osman contributed to this story.