I know this sounds like a stupid question, but I need to know if this is considered an accident that would need to be added to an application. My husband doesn't think it would be considered an accident, but I think we need to make sure.
My husband was stopped at a truck stop, pumping fuel, when he realized the cargo was on fire in his van. (It was no-touch freight and no hazmat had been claimed by shippers when he left.) He acted swiftly, moved the van away from the pumps, and unhitched his tractor just before the entire van went into full flames. He spent the day on the scene with the safety manager who was impressed with his handling of the situation. The President of his company called him to commend him for his quick thinking that prevented the truck stop from blowing up and saving the tractor.
Nobody knew what caused the freight to catch on fire. They suspected someone had shipped engines with fuel (because there was an engine among the debri), but the cause was undetermined. Two weeks later, my husband smelled gasoline in the van and informed the workers at the customer's terminal. The van was emptied of the entire contents and low and behold there was another engine. The company called the hazmat team to clean out the van. Thankfully, the van hadn't caught fire the second time, but it's clear that the cause of the first fire was someone shipping engines from the southwest corner of the state to the northwest corner of the state.
Is this considered an accident that should be listed on an application?