Weekend Argus (Sunday Edition)
Family fears for trucker injured by strikers
THE family of a man who was critically injured when a rock was thrown at him last week during the truckers’ strike, says it will be a miracle if he survives.
Gary Stewart, 42, was a passenger in a Global Force Transport truck travelling near Cape Town International Airport at about 2pm on Wednesday, when he leaned forward to pick up his lunch. The driver of the truck tried to warn him, but as he sat up a brick crashed through the windscreen and hit his head.
Yesterday Stewart’s sister, Michelle Fisher, said her brother suffered a fractured skull and severe brain injury, and that pressure was building on his brain.
He is in the intensive care unit at Vincent Pallotti Hospital.
“They did emergency surgery on Wednesday to put a metal plate into his head to fix the broken skull. We were told that the next 72 hours were critical, and that ends tomorrow. We’ll know [today] whether we… or the doctors need to make decisions about his care. If by some miracle he does pull through, he will be disabled,” Fisher added.
She and her husband, Henry, own the trucking company for which her brother works, and Fisher said the attack had left her very scared.
Meanwhile, striking transport unions and the Road Freight Association will be back at the bargaining table again on Tuesday after initial talks to end the two-week-long truck strike collapsed on Thursday.