Crushed by 11-tonne truck
When a concrete truck came to rest atop Matthew Pearson’s head, he hoped it would explode.
The runaway truck stopped on his head and upper torso.
The crushing pressure was immense and the thought of his bones breaking and organs exploding left him wishing for his head to pop first.
‘‘I didn’t want to be feeling that,’’ he said.
Just seconds before on September 20, the Kumeu concrete worker had been raking concrete on the driveway of a Matakana subdivision, next to a co-worker who was screeding, when they heard shouts to ‘Watch out!’.
He looked over his shoulder to see a concrete truck barrelling backwards towards him.
‘‘I knew I was in trouble,’’ Pearson said.
Ankle deep in concrete, he had little time to react.
There was a clear path to the left, but the screeder had taken it, so he immediately ruled it out.
‘‘We would have just collided and both gone down.’’
With the truck just three metres away, he saw his next best option as a pallet stacked with old house bricks.
It was in the path of the truck, but he thought it might provide some cover. He dove for it as the truck hit.
The bricks fell around him as he came to the ground and the rear right tyre of the truck came to rest on the upper part of his body, and the left hand side of his face.
‘‘Everyone thought I was dead. They saw it come straight over me.’’
Still alive, with an 11 tonne truck sitting on top of him and the loose bricks, Pearson began screaming for help and thrashing his lower body to try and get loose.
This dislodged some of the bricks beneath his head and body, creating room for his boss to pull him free.
He was taken to hospital by ambulance and walked out five hours later, amazed he was still alive.
‘‘I just don’t know how I walked away. No stitches, fractures - nothing. I just had some facial injuries and my body felt like it had been through a grinder.’’
He was back to work a week later.
Pearson praised the efforts of emergency service staff who responded. The first volunteer firefighter arrived two minutes after the 111 call was made, he said.
‘‘I just remember a parade of all these uniforms - fire, police and ambulance.’’
He sent a massive thanks to all those involved.
‘‘The area is just so lucky to have an awesome group of people looking after them.’’
Because of this Pearson said, if he was going to have another near death experience, Matakana would be the area he’d like to have it in.
The incident is undergoing a number of investigations including WorkSafe and the police’s Serious Crash Unit.