James Heifner Killed in Loose Tank Trailer Accident in Livermore, KY
Livermore, KY -- March 16, 2023, James Heifner was killed due to an accident where a trailer came loose and hit his vehicle.
Investigators said that the incident happened at around 2:30 p.m. along US Highway 431 where it crosses the Green River.
It appears that 64-year-old James Heifner was in a northbound Ford F-250 going along the Green River bridge. In oncoming lanes was another Ford truck hauling what police said were two anhydrous tanks. Somehow, one of the tanks came "unhooked," and it went into oncoming lanes where it hit Heifner's vehicle.
Heifner was taken to a hospital with critical injuries, but he later succumbed to those injuries. No other injuries were reported. Additional details from McLean Sheriff's officials and state police are unavailable at this time.
Obviously something went very wrong here, and to be rather blunt, the most likely explanation is that the driver hauling the tanks messed up big time. When trailers come loose, it's almost always because they weren't secured properly, weren't being used correctly, or were in a state of extreme disrepair. Any driver that hauls these kinds of tanks should be perfectly capable of making sure nothing is out of place before driving. Failing to look for issues or willfully ignoring them and hoping for the best generally means the driver (or their employer, if it's a company vehicle and equipment) can be in big trouble for those mistakes.
With that said, it would be outright irresponsible not to consider the possibility of a defect. If a trailer owner has every reasonable expectation that they're using their equipment properly, yet something still goes wrong, there's a chance a manufacturer made a mistake. Not only would that be crucial to determine so that the manufacturer could be held responsible for the harm they caused, but that could also mean uncovering a serious problem that's putting countless other consumers in danger. Are authorities making sure to look into that here?
One way or another, a man lost his life here due to circumstances which he more likely than not couldn't possibly have avoided. But chances are someone else easily could have avoided such a tragedy. The victim's family deserves to know who that may have been and why they couldn't do what trailer owners all over the country do on a daily basis without getting someone killed.
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