It was around 8 a.m. on July 15. Curtis Smith was driving along U.S. Highway 321 on his way to Columbia for work.

It was his normal route. It was a normal day. The weather was clear. The sky was sunny.

But the monotony of Smith’s daily commute was broken as he rounded a corner.

That’s when a white cloud that reeked of ammonia emerged into view.

“From what I could tell, it was on the ground,” Smith said. “It smelled like the ammonia that you clean with.”

Sensing imminent danger, Smith immediately turned the car around. He didn’t know exactly what was going on. However, he knew it wasn’t good.

“At first, I thought the building was on fire,” said Smith, a fire marshal with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Although Smith’s initial thoughts on the cloud’s source were wrong, his instincts were right on.

He blocked off the northbound lane of the road and diverted traffic away from the cloud.

Moments earlier and a few miles away, a tanker had been unloading 7,500 gallons of anhydrous ammonia, a toxic chemical, at Tanner Industries near Swansea.

A hose on the tanker ruptured, causing 1,800 gallons of the ammonia to evaporate. The fallout from the accident left a Wagener woman dead and six people hospitalized.

Smith, 26, was the right man in the right place at the right time for such an emergency.

He had served in the fire division at the Aiken Department of Public Safety and is currently a volunteer firefighter with the North Fire Department.

On that day, Smith’s training just kicked in.

“I just did what I did for six years as a fireman,” he said.

Smith’s efforts kept a few hundred people from driving straight into the cloud and quite possibly to their deaths.

But Smith says his deed was a modest one.

“I shut down the road. That’s all I did. It wasn’t much of nothing,” he said.

North Fire Chief Greg Gambrell disagrees.

“His actions of trying to stop traffic could have very well prevented more deaths or injuries,” Gambrell said.

He said Smith’s experience helped him recognize the threat.

Gambrell described Smith as a nice young man, a knowledgeable firefighter and churchgoer.

Gambrell and many others assisted in the effort. The North Fire Department blocked off traffic at the intersection of Lighting Hill Road and Savannah Highway near Woodford. That was about five miles away from the incident location.

“(U.S.) 321 is a heavily traveled road. It was backed up for several blocks,” he said.

Smith first got involved in firefighting at the age of 16 while attending North Augusta High School. He and a few friends decided to join the local volunteer fire department.

“I just got into it,” he said.

Ten years later, the decision proved to be beneficial for those traveling along U.S. 321 on a seemingly routine Wednesday in clear morning weather. “It was a natural reaction,” he said.

T&D Staff Writer Lee Tant can be reached by e-mail at ltant@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-534-1060. Discuss this and other stories at TheTandD.com.

You must be logged in to comment.