Boone County, MO : One man killed, and two other people taken to hospitals in a tractor-trailer Monday morning after a crash that involved three semis and an SUV at the eastbound 120.4 mile marker of Interstate 70 near Midway Travel Plaza on August 18, 2014

The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified the truck driver killed in a crash that shut down Interstate 70 for hours Monday as a 41-year-old Georgia man. According to the patrol's online crash report, Sean C. Gibson of Waynesboro, Ga., was killed when he was ejected from his tractor-trailer when it rear-ended another tractor trailer at 10:25 a.m. near the 120.4 mile marker. Gibson, whose truck also caught fire in the crash, wasn't wearing a seat belt, and was pronounced dead at the scene, the report said. The wreckage from the fatal accident was still smoldering hours after crews arrived on the scene. The crash shut down the eastbound lanes at the 120.4 mile marker for several hours, and traffic was being detoured on Exit 117 to avoid the crash scene. The driver of a U.S. Postal Service tractor-trailer carrying mail —identified by the patrol report as 56-year-old Isaac Kissel of Council Bluffs, Iowa — told investigators he slowed down for traffic on I-70 near Midway Truck Stop when he was rear-ended by another semi, Boone County Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Gale Blomenkamp said. The crash caused the Postal Service truck to jackknife and run into a red Toyota SUV, which flipped and rolled into the highway median, he said. When Gibson's tractor-trailer hit the Postal Service truck, its fuel tank ruptured and it burst into flames, Blomenkamp said, and was completely engulfed when first responders arrived. Rescue workers extricated two women from the red Toyota SUV and took them to University Hospital for what Blomenkamp said were “moderate injuries.” The driver of the Postal Service truck refused treatment and transportation to the hospital. The patrol said the women in the SUV were Phyllis Dangler, 74, of Tampa, Fla., and Debra Fisher, 45, of St. Louis. The patrol said Kissel's truck bumped a third semi, but the driver of that rig was not injured, and the vehicle was driven from the scene. Dan Cuneo said he was westbound on Interstate 70 and saw the crash happen. "I slammed on my brakes and pulled off and ran up to the red truck and pulled out one lady and helped pull out her mother and then ran down to the truck on fire and it exploded," Cuneo said. "It knocked me to the side a little bit and then I ran back." At about 1 p.m. firefighters were tearing out the sides of the trailer that caught fire so they could finish putting out the flames. Public Safety Joint Communications said at about 1:30 p.m. that personnel at the scene estimated the interstate would be closed for two to three more hours. The road remained closed shortly before 5 p.m., according to MoDOT's Central District online traveler information map. By 7 p.m. the map showed one lane of the interstate open. Source : Patrol names truck driver killed in Interstate 70 crash