I recall two incidents from the 70s the first one was a Seal Sands where a tanker pulled onto the weigh-bridge after loading and noticed that the barrel was leaking and it was waste product en-route to Pitsea waste liquid had eaten through a stainless steel barrel and they were very lucky that it had started while still on site so they were able to go and discharge the load. The reason I know about this is because I went and did a few loads of the stuff as I had a general purpose stainless steel vacuum tank which was built with a far thicker steel and was over 1 ton heavier than most G P tanks. I know the tanker firm and the chemical company and I am sure that one or two members on here know about this incident as the safety went off the clock for a short time as it was not too long after the hazchem course’s had started as I had done mine at ICI Billingham I had no problem.
The second incident was far more serious as it involved " Acrylonitrile " the tanker driver doing this to Hythe from Immingham had tipped and put his safety suit in his cab and it being a cold wet day he had his heater on and windows closed and he never made it to the main road A35 ? is it as the fumes had knocked out again I know the company as our firm took over the contract and we had to have the special nitrile suits which were double skinned and B A had to be worn while loading and discharging which was carried out by the customers staff but you had to be there to open and close the tanker valves but the driver must have had a splash on his suit and throwing it into the passenger side he could not have realized either how dangerous it was or that he had a splash on his protective clothing. When our firm took over we had to attend a special course and were supplied with a serum which could only be administered by a DOCTOR but we did have a lockable box fitted to carry our safety suit in we did this work for about 4 years and then Calor took over the contract.