18 Truck Tires

Sacramento-area survivors describe fiery train-truck collision

A retired couple from Camino and a recent high school graduate from Loomis are among the survivors of Friday's deadly truck-and-train collision in Nevada who made their way home after the fiery ordeal.

Christian Freed, 18, of Loomis graduated from Del Oro High School this month and had traveled to a dance event in Aspen, Colo.

At about 11:25 a.m. Friday, he was returning home on Amtrak's California Zephyr, riding in a coach car just behind the passenger car that a big rig slammed into at a highway crossing.

Freed said he was reading a book when he felt a jolt, the cars swayed, and he turned to see red and orange flames streaming outside the windows.

The brakes came on. The train slowed, and after about a half-mile, it came to a stop. "I was in shock for a couple of seconds," Freed said Saturday. "Then I decided I had to get my stuff and get out of there."

Other passengers had the same idea. Freed said they gathered up their belongings and walked through the observation car and exited the sleeping car.

Some passengers held babies. Others were elderly. There was a man with a broken arm covered in blood. He'd come from the badly damaged and burned first coach car, Freed said.

Freed said he telephoned his mother amid the chaos and told her his train would be late due to "technical difficulties." He didn't want to worry her with the truth.

About 45 minutes later, when news of the wreck spread, his mother called him back upset, he said.

As noxious fumes drifted toward the survivors, they began to trudge over the soft sand back to U.S. 95, where the tractor-trailer that struck the train was burning, Freed said.

At the highway, motorists stopped to help. One woman with a camper broke out cases of water and set up an awning for shade. "She was an absolute saint," Freed said.

Ambulances and helicopters arrived to transport the wounded. School buses came to take the uninjured to an elementary school in Fallon, 30 miles south.

Several hours later, Freed climbed aboard a charter bus with about 50 other passengers bound for the Sacramento area. His parents met him in Roseville.

"They were quite overjoyed," he said. "My mom hugged me. She had tears in her eyes. My dad was relieved. They were more shocked than I was."

Freed's mother, Stephanie Freed, said, "We're so grateful to have him back"

On Saturday evening, Clayton and Linda Cook, retirees who live in Camino, were still making their way home. They'd stopped at a Lake Tahoe restaurant for dinner.

Tire Review - Hankook Recalls Truck Tires in China

Recently Kumho announced the recall of more than 300,000 tires in China; now it is Hankook's turn, albeit on a far smaller scale.

The Korean manufacturer has recalled 246 Chinese manufactured tires after national safety authority, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, discovered a fault on June 10. It was found that due to a design or manufacturing fault, steel cord protruded through the seams of a number of inspected tires – a defect that increases the risk of rupturing.

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Review of truck characteristics as factors in roadway design

Manual for solid truck tire service plants

Maintenance management, proceedings of the Seventh Maintenance Management Conference, Orlando, Florida, July 18-21, 1994

Automotive industries