Driver injured as truck crashes into gully
A TRUCK driver is in hospital after his refrigerator truck laden with frozen poultry plunged metres into a Waikato gully.
The Linfox truck and trailer was heading north just before midnight on Thursday when it crashed off rural Kakaramea Rd (State Highway 39) west of Hamilton.
The driver was believed to have walked from the wreckage before being taken to Waikato Hospital in a serious condition with facial injuries.
Neighbours heard an ‘‘almighty bang’’ and raced out to find the wheels of the trailer spinning in the air.
‘‘My partner was up, he was out in the shed and heard this almighty bang,’’ Lorraine Wiri said, looking at the mess yesterday morning.
‘‘My son, who is 15, got up and called the police – he could hear the motor running, but thought it was refrigeration.’’
Wiri arrived home from night shift at 7am to a chaos of cars and workers removing boxes of frozen poultry from the rear of the wreck. A crane was on site ready to pick the truck out.
It was lucky the truck wasn’t travelling north otherwise it may have ended up in the couple’s front yard, she said.
‘‘He’s gone down through the drain. Normally when cars come, they realise they are going off and overcorrect and end up on their roofs in the hedge further down the road.’’
The section of road – on a sweeping bend 2.5km south of Whatawhata – was notorious for crashes, she said. There had been about a dozen since the couple and their two children moved in six years ago. She had banned her five-yearold son from playing near the trees in their front yard for fear a car would crash off the highway.
Hamilton police Senior Sergeant Damion Rangitutia said the Commercial Vehicle Investigation Unit was looking into the crash.