APOPKA, Fla. --
A tanker truck hauling 6,000 gallons of treated human waste overturned Friday morning when the driver took the 429 onramp at 441 a little too fast. The road was closed for two hours, but was reopened before 11:00am.
"The main thing was to confine the area and make sure it didn't spread to anywhere else. We were able to dam it up quite quickly with the equipment we had on the engines in the rescue," said Lt. R.L. Colina, Apopka Fire Rescue.
The accident happened just after 7:00, in the middle of the morning rush. Hundreds of motorists on US-441 found themselves trapped in a long line of traffic that didn't clear up until two hours later.
"We're sorry that this happened. We run a couple hundred loads a day. We have a really good track record with DOT," explained David Shelley, the tanker's owner.
The owner of Shelly's Septic said the tanker, filled with treated human waste, had just left his plant in Zellwood and was headed to a landfill on Narcoossee Road in Osceola County, where it was to be properly disposed of. Shelley said the spill is not an environmental danger.
"It's already gone through a treatment through the cities and the counties. And then we bring it to our place. We screen it, get out all the trash, treat it again to a Class B or a Class AA sludge, then it's land applied," Shelley explained.
Apopka firefighters used sand and water to clean up the stinky mess that landed the truck driver in the hospital with a few broken fingers.
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