Logging truck crash ‘a nightmare’
A Te Karaka mother is thankful she is still alive after hearing, then seeing, a fully loaded logging truck flip in front of her.
“My guardian angel was watching over us,” she said.
The sound of the fully loaded log truck screeching along the road was “so scary” but what she saw seconds later when she came off the Kaitaratahi Bridge on Matawai Rd was a “nightmare come true”.
The truck was sprawled across both lanes with logs everywhere.
“We were going home from Gisborne. There were two people in my car and there was a car ahead of me . . . there were four of us there. The first thing I did was ring 111.”
The 60-year-old driver was a Te Karaka local, she said.
He was taken to Gisborne Hospital with serious injuries. The passenger was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The truck and trailer unit rolled on State Highway 2 just north of Lavenham Rd about 2.30pm on Tuesday afternoon as it was heading towards the city.
Road blocks were placed at Te Karaka and at the Ormond Rd intersection. As it was nearly the end of school time, there were some frantic parents in the queues on either side.
Te Karaka Area School principal Gordon Pepere said thanks to people like the school bus driver, staff and the tolerance of worried parents, the job of managing the students at school and getting them home from school was made easier.
“We have to be grateful that the potential for the incident to be far worse did not eventuate. Our thoughts go out to those who were injured,” Pepere said yesterday.
It was not until after 6pm that the highway was reopened to one lane with traffic control in place.