Truck driver tells of dramatic rescue in Central North Island

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New Zealand Herald / September 22, 2015

A man has described how a group of truckies helped smash a window, freeing a trapped truck driver from a cab in a fast-moving creek.

Chris Cording of Marton said he and another McCarthy Transport employee, Shane Gowan, were travelling on State Highway 1 in a work ute on the way to pick up their own truck at about 5am this morning.

They looked up a hill and saw some hazard lights flashing on another truck, he said.

"So it had obviously just happened. And then we looked to our right, and we seen the truck down the bank. So I said to me mate that was driving the ute: Oh Christ, he's gone down into the drain, so best we do something and get down there and bloody get him out."

The accident happened when the truck, carrying a load of potato chips, plunged into a creek near Utiku in the central North Island.

Mr Cording said "a couple of other jokers" were also in the area, ready to help out.

"We were yelling out to see if he was still alive, and we got no response straight off. Then obviously we yelled again, and he heard us, and he yelled back and said: Get me out of here."

Mr Cording said some men who appeared to be engineers turned up in another ute and one quickly retrieved some tools.

"So he got out a hammer, and the boys took the hammer down and smashed the front window, and eventually dragged this poor bugger out."

The driver, described as a stocky man in his 50s, was "battered and bruised a bit", but not seriously hurt, Mr Cording said.

"..He gave himself a bit of a fright, I would have thought."

The creek was small and fairly shallow but recent rains meant it was flowing fast, adding even more urgency to the rescue efforts.

Mr Cording called 111 and helped direct rescue efforts in the pre-dawn darkness. He said Mr Gowan understood the truckie was "upside-down" laying in the passenger seat, in the water.

"And we just didn't know whether he was laying in the water, or the water had gone into his cab...so yeah, she was all action mate, just trying to get him out. So the boys went back down and my co-worker jumped in the water and smashed the window and they eventually dragged him up, up to the top of the hill, up to the safe area."

The driver was "very, very lucky" today, Mr Cording said.

"I'd say he needs to go and buy a Lotto ticket."

Mr Cording said the truckie's relatively light load of chips possibly saved him from more serious injury.

"I would be picking if he had anything heavy inside, he would have got crushed straight away.

"He was pretty desperate to get up. I'd be picking he had his seatbelt on...which saved him, and then he's unclipped it, and hadn't realised the position of the truck..."

Mr Cording said he was "no bloody Superman" but he and Mr Gowan, the engineers, and three or four other truckies knew they had to help.

"We're all truckies at the end of the day, mate."

The driver was a bit shaken, Mr Cording added.

"You would be too. You're driving big units like we are mate, and you go down the side of a bank, you're looking at stars before you're looking at the road again."

Mr Cording said the group stayed with the cold, wet truckie, who was in good spirits, for about half an hour.

"I think he was just happy to be alive."

Local firefighters said the truck probably hit a bank, went through a fence and careered back on and off the road, hitting a tree and a fence again.

Mangaweka firefighter Neil Sinclair confirmed the truck was on its side after crashing into the creek, luckily with the driver's side up, he told NZME News Service.

"If it fell on the right hand side it might have been a different story," Mr Sinclair said.

"He's pretty lucky...I was quite surprised he got out of it and actually walked up the hill," he added.

Mr Sinclair said the injured truckie was later able to share a joke with ambulance staff when some of his cold, wet clothes had to be replaced.

"He was having a joke and a laugh, saying 'I don't normally get a man to take my clothes off, it's normally a woman."

The driver told ambulance staff he was a diabetic and he had visible bruising on one of his arms.

Mr Sinclair understood the man was nearing the end of his shift when he crashed.

Mangaweka chief fire officer Rex Noble said the truck hit a bank up the road and the driver recalled "fighting the truck" to get back in control.

"He's a lucky boy though. [He] was on his side, his left-hand side. I think he undid his seatbelt and he dropped, down to the bottom side and that's how he got all wet."

The firefighters said the trailer was intact - so no chips had spilled into the creek.

St John spokesman Mark Tregoweth said the ambulance service was alerted to the incident at 5.01am.

Soon after, the Palmerston Rescue Helicopter crew met firefighters and ambulance personnel who brought the injured man down the road from Utiku.

"There was low cloud and rain at the scene at Utiku, so we actually picked him up from the road ambulance who drove south, down the road, while we were coming north," Rescue Helicopter base manager and pilot Chris Moody said.

The injured truckie was airlifted at about 6.51am and taken to Palmerston North hospital.

Initially the man was thought to be seriously injured but a Palmerston North Hospital spokesman said the truckie was in a stable condition with moderate injuries shortly after 10am.

Police said the accident happened at about 5am and confirmed the driver was "wet and cold" but able to walk up to ambulance staff who arrived in the area.

One lane of the three-lane road nearby was closed.

The police Commercial Vehicle Investigation Unit planned to investigate, and Rangitikei District Council was being asked to help police remove the truck from the creek.

The truck and its two trailers were still in the creek about 10am. The back trailer had swung and was at a roughly 45 degree vertical angle from the front trailer.

The back trailer had squashed part of the front trailer.

The truck belonged to AF Logistics, a third party provider to Linfox, who told NZME News Service the accident happened while the driver was performing a delivery on behalf of the business.

"Our concern is with the driver involved in the incident," a spokeswoman said.

"The business is co-operating with authorities and we will conduct our own investigation into what occurred."

The AF Logistics company website said the firm had coolstores and depots in Auckland, Wellington, Palmerston North, Hastings and New Plymouth and more than 100 trucks nationwide.

Related photographs:

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