A woman is seriously injured in hospital after a car ploughed into the back of a lorry stuck in traffic following an earlier fuel spill.Tailbacks of more than two hours plunged Basingstoke into chaos after sections of the M3 towards London were shut down because of two major crashes hours apart.
Police are appealing for witnesses to the second incident, which resulted in a woman being airlifted to hospital with life threatening injuries.
At 8.30am on October 20 an articulated lorry carrying diesel collided with a van and a car, causing it to rip away 60m of the nearside barrier and spill 500 litres of diesel across 150m of the three lane motorway.
The police and the Highways Agency took the decision to evacuate the road between Junction 6 at Basingstoke, and Junction 5 at Hook.
Motorists were taken off the motorway at Junction 6 northbound, diverted onto the A30 and the A287 past Hook and rejoining the M3 at Junction 5.
With the motorway empty, the Highways Agency dispatched a resurfacing crew from Winchester with a police escort to the spill.
According to a Highways Agency spokesman James Wright, severe diesel spills require the affected stretch to be ripped up and new asphalt laid down.
He said: “Diesel is nasty staff that basically dissolves the black top on the road. The diesel itself makes it slippy, but also substantially weakens the road surface as well.
“The bitumen that forms part of the top of the asphalt is part of the same oil based process. Put simply the one dissolves the other. The reason it doesn’t happen with petrol is because it evaporates so quickly.”
As the tailbacks grew, police were called to reports of a collision between a car and a red flatbed lorry at 12.36pm just after Junction 7 at Dummer.
According to police a white Nissan Almera smashed into the back of the metal-carrying lorry stationary in lane one at the back of the queue of traffic.
The Almera hit the lorry with enough force that it became partially embedded under the back of the lorry’s trailer.
The front-seat passenger, a 35-year-old woman from Essex suffered life threatening injuries and was airlifted to Southampton General Hospital. Her condition has since improved, but are still deemed serious.
As the air ambulance was called in, police cleared traffic at Junction 7 and closed the entire stretch. Traffic moving southbound was halted from 1pm until 1.45pm while the chopper landed.
The driver of the Almera, a 40-year-old woman from Somerset was treated in hospital for minor injuries. She was later arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving and bailed until January.
Police have appealed for witnesses to the incident. Sergeant Rob Heard, from the roads death investigation team in Eastleigh said: “This was a serious collision which resulted in what were initially believed to be life threatening injuries. The injured woman’s condition is described as serious but no longer life threatening and her family have been informed.
“We’re keen to speak to anyone who witnessed the incident, or saw the vehicles shortly before it.”
With resurfacing work still underway, and police investigators on the M3, the Highways Agency chose to keep the M3 closed between the three junctions. They pulled drivers off the motorway at Dummer and rejoined them at Hook. The ripple effect led to more than two-hours of delays.
The motorway was reopened at 7.20pm when the resurfacing work was completed. Highways Agency operations manager Graham Russell praised his staff and the police’s effort in trying to keep commuters moving.
He said: “I’d like to thank drivers for their patience during the serious incident on the M3. There was a considerable clean up operation required, including fully resurfacing a 150 metre section across all three lanes of the motorway.
“We worked extremely hard with Hampshire Constabulary and other partners to clear up the incident as quickly and safely as possible, and to keep traffic moving and keep people informed in the meantime.”
Anyone with information is urged to contact Sgt Heard at Eastleigh police station on 101, quoting operation Gatling.
