Triaxle crashes, catches fire along Route 66 near Youngwood

More than a dozen passersby stopped Thursday morning to rescue a man trapped in a burning triaxle truck after it crashed in New Stanton, according to fire Chief Rob Cammarata.

Joe Schiavone and Steve Parsons were headed to a job for Perfect Industrial Cleaning when they came upon the ball of flames where Route 119 turns into Route 66. They used up four or five fire extinguishers before turning to their pressure washing equipment in a chaotic effort to quell the flames and save the driver.

“By that point, the flames were so intense and so out of control,” Schiavone said.

Cammarata said the entire bridge that crosses Interstate 70 was on fire from spilled diesel fuel when he got to the scene.

Others on the road at the time rescued the man from the fiery wreckage, he said. The driver, whose identity was not released, was taken by medical helicopter to UPMC Mercy in critical condition, said Shawn Penzera of Mutual Aid EMS.

The 8 a.m. crash shut down the northbound side of the highway for hours. It was reopened by the afternoon.

In the immediate aftermath, state troopers were on the southbound side of the highway interviewing a group of people reportedly involved in the rescue. A woman at the scene recounted the situation during a cellphone call as a nearby man embraced her.

“I pulled him out of the truck,” the man told the Trib but declined to elaborate on the rescue.

State police said the crash started on Route 119, continued over the bridge and ended on Route 66, just south of where North Center Avenue crosses over Route 70.

There was a trail of debris leading up to the charred wreckage of the triaxle. The truck’s bed was over a hillside, and debris and the load of asphalt it was carrying spilled over the bridge onto the highway between Youngwood and New Stanton. State police were investigating the cause.

An initial inspection of the bridge cleared it to reopen to traffic, said Crispin Havener, a Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesperson. A more thorough inspection will be done later by engineers from the agency’s bridge team as a precaution.

Schiavone praised the emergency response.

“You can’t appreciate what these firefighters and first responders do for us in life,” he said. “These people earn every damn nickel they’re worth.”

He and Parsons continued on to their job afterwards. But the crash stayed in their mind throughout the day.

“God put us at that scene,” Schiavone said.

Renatta Signorini and Quincey Reese are TribLive staff writers. Renatta can be reached at rsignorini@triblive.com. Quincey can be reached at qreese@triblive.com.