There are scenes of carnage in Singleton after a fiery truck crash this morning.
NSW Ambulance received a Triple Zero call from a member of the public just before 9am with reports of a serious accident involving a truck and several cars on George Street in Singleton.
Police say a semi-trailer carrying compost was allegedly stolen from a BP Service Station in Murrurundi at about 7:30am. The truck was seen driving erratically south along the New England Highway through Muswellbrook towards Singleton.
Police didn't initiate a pursuit due to safety reasons and instead deployed road spikes a couple of kilometres outside of Singleton in a bid to stop the truck.
The truck continued onto George Street where it crashed into several cars and buildings, including The Royal Hotel, before being engulfed in flames and coming to a standstill.
"We've assessed a total of eight patients on scene. All adult patients," said Inspector Luke Wiseman from NSW Ambulance.
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One of the men airlifted to hospital was trapped in his vehicle for a short time before being freed.
"This is a pretty significant incident what's occurred today, quite a confronting incident as you can imagine through the New England Highway of Singleton where you've got a truck which has run into multiple, multiple cars and also buildings," said Inspector Wiseman.
A critical incident investigation has been launched with a team from Port Stephens Local Area Command who will piece together what happened in the events leading up to the horror crash including the deployment of road spikes.
The alleged driver of the truck, a 29-year-old man, was arrested at the scene by police and remains in custody while he assists with investigations.
"The driving of the truck was reckless to say the least and criminal to say the worst," said Acting Commander Robert Post.
Acting Commander Post addressed the media this afternoon, but couldn't comment on the use of road spikes or the events leading up to the crash as it's forming a key part of the investigation.
"The plan is to try and disable the vehicle (using road spikes), I can't comment on whether the vehicle was disabled or not or what damage might have occurred and that will form a key part of the investigation. Obviously, you see the truck there behind us and it is quite damaged so I can't make any comment,"
"It was quite a daunting scene for our first responders. it took quite a while to get it under control. Many traffic diversions had to be put in place in quite a short period of time. Those diversions are going to remain for some hours, this scene will take several hours to unfold and unfortunately, it is going to affect the running of the township of singleton in terms of traffic flow."
There are reports of minor collisions and incidents along the way through Muswellbrook, so anyone with any information or who witnessed anything are being urged to come forward and contact police.
