Cle Elum, WA : Man killed in semi crash on I-90 Wednesday morning, August 3, 2016

A semi truck transporting ammonia crashed on Interstate 90 Wednesday morning, killing the driver and sending fumes of smoke into the air. The wreck caused major backups for both eastbound and westbound drivers.

The driver of the truck - which was carrying four tanks of anhydronous ammonia - lost control of the vehicle and drove into the median, where the semi rolled, puncturing a thousand-gallon tank of the chemical. The wreck happened near Cle Elum and the Indian John Rest Area.

One trooper was in the area and arrived at the scene quickly. He tried to talk to the driver, but he was unresponsive and later pronounced dead at the scene.

The trooper called for extra help, and hazmat crews arrived to take care of the leak to secure the scene; however, it took them a while to get the eastbound lanes open as they waited until it was safe to do so.

"Thanks for the folks out there who were on the roadway, just for being patient. I know it's tough for a lot of people to be patient, but we just want to let them know that we wanted to keep them safe, that's the one thing, we want everybody to be safe," said John Bryant with the Washington State Patrol.

Safety is definitely their number one priority due to the fact that they wouldn't allow our reporter to approach the crash scene because of possible hazards.

Our reporter was able to talk with a woman at the nearby rest area about the traffic the crash caused. The woman and her family were moving to Missouri, and were only an hour and a half into their trip when they hit the backup.

"Stuck in traffic? I can't believe, but you know, we can't be upset about it, because we are so relieved to be on the road," the traveler stuck in eastbound traffic told us.

They weren't the only ones who made a pit stop at this rest area; there were many others who just wanted to get out of the car and stretch their legs after the long wait.

Source :
Troopers identify man killed in semi crash along I-90