(The following story by Kasey Fowler appeared on the Enid News & Eagle website on August 29.)
MEDFORD, Okla. — Two people were killed and another critically injured Friday morning when a freight train hit a propane tanker truck south of here, triggering a massive explosion.
The injured truck driver, Dennis Wayne Etherton, 52, of Tahlequah, was airlifted to Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Hospital in Wichita, Kan., with third-degree burns over at least 50 percent of his body, according to Oklahoma Highway Patrol. He was listed in critical condition.
The two men who died were crew members on the Union Pacific train. They were conductor Larry Benny Williams, of Oklahoma City, and engineer Richard D. Pardarvis, of Anadarko. No ages were available.
“The explosion was massive,” said Mike Honigsberg, director of Enid and Garfield County Emergency Management. “It blew the tank a quarter to a half a mile.”
The accident happened at 9:20 a.m. on the tracks on U.S. 81 about three miles south of Medford, according to Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George Brown.
Etherton had just filled his tanker at a ConocoPhillips LP underground storage site south of Medford before the accident, Conoco Phillips spokeswoman Shanley Wells said.
“He had just filled up at our facility and left,” she said.
Union Pacific spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza-Williams said the truck was on the train tracks when the locomotive slammed into it.
“It was just a direct hit,” Honigsberg said. “The train crew saw it coming and hit the emergency brake.”
Donna Kush, another Union Pacific spokeswoman, said the two-person crew sounded the horn and began trying to stop the train 140 feet before impact while going about 37 mph.