Multi-Vehicle Collision Involving HGV and Fuel Tanker on A5 Bridge

Today at around 19:50 emergency services received a 999 Call stating there was a multi vehicle RTC (Road Traffic Collision) between multiple cars and a HGV. Police, Fire, Ambulance, and even the Air ambulance was called to scene.

The collision was described by members of the public as "A fatal sight with body's lying in the roads." As the local emergency services arrived on scene, they where greeted by a big ball of dark smoke clustering the bridge making it hard for those who didn't have breathing appraise to breath in the air around them. With this being said, by passers came to a holt, and looked at the carnage that was taking place. The fire fighters taking lead to tackle the blaze with LHS Hart medics charging in behind them trying to rescue any soles that where visible to the human eye.

Below are some statement from members of the public and emergency services personals logged on the 18/12/2024 at 21:29;

Kody (member of the public) - "So i was just driving my HGV. On my way to work. I was on my way to drop of some logs and then some fella cut Infront of me in a car what cased me to hit a fuel tanker tanks. What lead to what's behind me (the crash). What then made a tragic event happen. There's body's everywhere."

LFRS IC STATEMENT - "At 19:46 on the 18th of December 5 x LFRS assets were dispatched to a multi vehicle collision on the A5 bridge, upon arrival it became apparent the incident would be dynamic posing a number of evolving risks, most significantly a compromised fuel tanker, incident zoning and traffic management. LFRS moved through the traffic build-up and units on scene to establish a set of zones to increase scene safety.

LFRS IC (JO-1) immediately liaised with HART to form an immediate extraction plan along with identifying expected casualty numbers. Upon IC establishing a brief and teams, firefighters began entering the Hot-zone, the team of FRU were instructed to prioritise vehicle sweeps, ensuring we could rule out the presence of any trapped casualties. An extraction team bypassed significant fires in an attempt to extract casualties in a timely manner. Those located and extracted, were then handed over to HART in the warm zone, where they could assess injuries and move into lower risk zones where treatment would take place with the relevant units. Another team was tasked with entering the risk zone and knocking down the major fires.

Once all casualties had been identified and extracted with the assistance of a Metropolitan Drone unit and HART, the 3 LFRS teams re-joined to begin focussing efforts solely on firefighting. A final sweep of the incident site was conducted alongside HART and confirmation of no further casualties was given to the units on scene over radio, less than 35 minutes after the arrival of the first LFRS units.

The scene concluded with more than 15 fires extinguished, 7 casualties extracted and in excess of 10 of the vehicles involved declared safe."