Asbestos truck overturns on Clearview BY Joe Gould and Kerry Burke
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A massive container truck overturned in Queens Sunday, spilling bags of hazardous asbestos across the highway - then the driver climbed out of the rig and fled on foot, cops said.
The tarp-covered 14-wheeler flipped over onto the driver's side as it was exiting the Long Island Expressway just before 2 p.m., witnesses and cops said.
The truck's driver cut the turn to the ramp onto the northbound Clearview Expressway too tightly and tipped, spilling more than a dozen bags onto the highway, cops and witnesses said.
The unidentified driver climbed out of the wreck and fled before Emergency Service and haz-mat units arrived to clean up the loose asbestos, authorities said.
"It's very dangerous when it's airborne," trucker Vinny Chieffo, 50, said of the toxic material. "A truck like that shouldn't be carrying asbestos, not with just a drape over it."
Workers with the Department of Environmental Protection, clad in blue moon suits and gas masks, gathered the debris on the roadway, which was shut down from 73rd Ave. to Northern Blvd. for more than four hours.
One Fire Department official speculated the driver was "illegally dumping." "Why else would the driver run away?" said the official, who did not want his name used.
Update: The driver, identified as Artur Gaska, 39, initially fled but returned and was arrested on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, the police said.
Nice, eh?
11 comments:
That was near Bayside, whole drivers side wheel and control arm came off.
It was one of those trucking companys from Mexico that dont require inspection (one of Bush's new programs)
The driver is still at large
Guarantee that a rotten contractor is behind it!
This was a plot line in the final season of The Sopranos!
We don't need any terrorists
with crooked scum like this running loose.....
illegally transporting and disposing
of toxic materials!
Bin Laden's boys couldn't have done any better!
Bring home the troops from Iraq to police the
DOB, DEP and all the rest of our city's corrupt regulatory departments and agencies!
Hey.....here's a better one.
Tommy Huang once hired a Russian (mob?)
asbestos removal contractor from Brooklyn.
Witnesses observed Latino day laborers
dumping some asbestos from the RKO Keith's
into street corner public waste baskets!
You folks at Bayside's upscale Bay Club etc.
had best hold your breath for a few days
until the air clears....if ever.
Also have your condos checked
for friable asbestos contamination.
Oh pardon me.....
these kind of things
only are supposed to happen in Flushing.
Supposed to happen in Flushing? First of all, It was an accident and could have happened anywhere so dont be bitter about the people who live in the Bay Club. Secondly, this didnt happen anywhere near the bay club. If you read the article, the Clearview was closed from 74th Avenue to Northern Blvd, and this happened on the ramp of the LIE, so The Bay club is a little far away. Your bitterness is a little uncalled for.
Anon #4 sounds like a total loser. Probably shines shoes for a living, in between binges.
We're speaking here of those spoiled
"Bay Club types".....
who generally think their shit is ice cream!
These Baysiders....or perhaps I should say Naysiders.....
think things like this
can never happen in their hood!
No.....I never shined shoes or boozed it up.
I'm just a retired mobster....ha, ha, ha......
who used to transport hazardous materials
to an illegal dump in Jersey.
Ah, Bay Club types.
Well you might have a point there.
I just started working with a woman from that area and she does walk about with a superior air.
Funny thing, though, when I talk to her she drops the air and is really a nice and friendly person.
(It's good to hear you're not a wino.)
I thank you sir.
You're a gentleman after all.
I only take an occasional dram
of single malt Scott's whiskey
("The" Glenlivet....my only vice) !
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