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Police and emergency responders shut down a section of U.S. Route 301 early Tuesday afternoon in Upper Marlboro after a man lost control of his tractor-trailer on a wet road and slid into a steep ditch, sustaining serious injuries.
The driver, around 30 years old, lost control as he was driving north between Croom Road and Croom Station Road around 11:30 a.m. and slid into the embankment, according to Mark Brady, a Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department spokesman.
Two tanks on the sides of the truck's cab burst, spilling about 150 gallons of fuel and covering the driver, Brady said. The truck's tank, which had the capacity to hold 8,000 gallons of diesel fuel, was empty.
Responders used a stokes basket—a plastic sheet used to lift injured people—to pull the man up to the road, where they washed the fuel off him and sent him to a local hospital.
A Maryland State Police trooper who answered the phone at the police barrack in Forestville said the road was still closed at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
E-mail Greg Holzheimer at gholzheimer@gazette.net
