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TORONTO — Scalding-hot liquefied tar from an industrial vat spilled over a road crew worker Monday morning, encasing a 46-year-old man in the back of a construction truck, requiring an hour of frantic chipping and cutting of the hardening tar by firefighters to free him.

The worker is being treated in the burn unit of Sunnybrook Hospital; his injuries are described as critical.

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Horrified on-lookers called 911 at 7:37 a.m., after the driver of a moving five-ton truck — part of a two-vehicle road repair crew — braked hard to avoid running over a piece of equipment that fell from the front of the vehicle, emergency officials said.

“When the vehicle came to an abrupt stop, the tar washed up and out of its container and into the work area of the truck,” said Const. Clint Stibbe of the Toronto Police Service.

There were three workers in the rear of the truck, but one took the force of the 200 C tar, with the wave knocking him to the floor of the truck and trapping him there.

Firefighters in heat-protective suits cut away a side panel of the truck with a reciprocating saw to get to the fallen worker, and paramedics gave him a pain-reducing injection.

“The molten tar had spilled out of the container and completely encased one of the workers in the back,” said Platoon Chief Dave Denysek with Toronto Fire Services who responded to the scene.