Verdict on log truck driver’s tragic death

A LOG truck driver found slumped dead in his cab as his vehicle leaned over a steep embankment in northern Tasmania died after a heart event, a coroner says.

In March 2018, Barry Smith, a 61-year-old father and truck driver of four decades, was found deceased while delivering logs for Scottsdale company Perotti Brothers.

Mr Smith, who also worked as a truck driver instructor, had undergone an employment health assessment at the beginning of his job four years earlier, and received a normal result.

On the day of his death, Mr Smith followed his normal routine of waking up at 1am to deliver loads of logs in his Kenworth T404 twin-steer prime mover, towing a fully laden log trailer. About 1pm, another truck driver was travelling along an unnamed road near Ringarooma and saw a flash of light that he identified as a truck’s reversing light.

The driver saw his truck still running, and leaning against trees over a steep embankment on the road edge. Mr Smith’s windscreen was smashed.

When the man climbed down to the cabin and opened the driver’s door, he found Mr Smith lying face down with his head and shoulders in the passenger side footwell and his mid-section over the gear levers. The man could not find a pulse on Mr Smith, and contacted police and ambulance.

Police said there were no visible braking or steering marks on the road, but there were tyre marks and gouges on the road verges and embankment.

Investigators said the truck had left the road and started rolling counterclockwise, but was stopped by large trees.

Mr Smith was not wearing his seatbelt, and his head struck the cab’s interior before he fell into the footwell.

A pathologist was unable to determine the definite cause of death, but said Mr Smith either lost consciousness due to cardiac arrhythmia, or he died due to positional asphyxia.

“Whilst it is not possible to make a finding regarding the ultimate cause of his death, I am satisfied that Mr Smith did suffer a loss of consciousness by reason of a cardiac arrhythmia whilst he was driving lawfully and slowly on a section of road upon which he had driven many times in the past,” Coroner Olivia McTaggart said in a recently-released record of investigation into death.