A San Diego Fire battalion chief may have been asleep at the wheel when he crashed a department pickup in Texas last month, seriously injuring two fellow firefighters.
San Diego Battalion Chief Aide Barbat and two captains, Jesse Schultz and Greg Davies, were riding in a San Diego Fire-Rescue pickup truck headed to North Carolina to help with hurricane relief efforts when their 2006 F-350 went off the road on I-20 near the Texas-Louisiana border.
Barbat was driving in the fast lane but went into the center divider, then overcorrected to the right and up an embankment, eventually rolling over the truck several times before it came to rest in the far right freeway lane,, NBC7 reported, citiing a document from Texas Department of Public Safety.
The front passenger got out to try to warn approaching drivers but the pickup was hit by another vehicle minutes later with the other two firefighters still inside.
The firefighter riding in the back seat, who is not identified in the report, told investigators that Barbat "may have fallen asleep," while the other man, who was in the front passenger seat, simply said that the pickup "ran off of the road."
Neither drugs nor alcohol are believed to have played a role in the crash, according to the report.
"Chief Barbat and Capt. Schultz are hospitalized and continuing their recovery. Capt. Schultz is at an out-of-state facility, not at UCSD. Capt. Davies update is that he's continuing his recovery at home. The families say they won't be providing additional updates."
