Clyde R. Fraley died saving an unknown number of persons from a runaway truck, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, February 19, 1948. While a tanker truck containing 4,000 gallons of gasoline, which Fraley, 39, truck driver, was driving, began descending a street which had a four percent downgrade for 2,850 feet, the truck jerked violently and continued moving at increasing speed. Flames two to three feet long extended from beneath the rear of the cab. The street on the downgrade had four blocks of dwellings and two of business buildings, and at least 10 persons were outside on it. Fraley remained at the steering wheel, and the horn sounded continuously. As the truck approached the lower business block at a speed of 50 m.p.h., it swerved around a parked automobile, in which a man was sitting. At the foot of the slope the truck sped 270 feet on an upgrade of four percent. to the terminus of the street in a cross street, the farther side of which had a concrete retaining wall ten feet high. The truck started to turn up the cross street but crashed into the wall, throwing Fraley onto the pavement and causing the tank to explode. Flames 30 feet high enveloped Fraley and a wide area. Firemen later recovered Fraley’s body. 41317-3569
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