Driver survives deadly roll

After looking at photos of what he had just survived, fifty-year-old Arnos Marshall is thanking his lucky stars that he is still alive.{{more}}

Hours earlier, Marshall had been involved in a traffic accident that nearly claimed his life.

The truck driver was traveling to Hopewell, Mespotamia, through the Yambou road.

As Marshall approached a narrow point on the road, he encountered a passenger van traveling in the opposite direction.

“When I see the van coming, I blow my horn twice and he still approach me.”

Marshall said that the van, which he identified as H 211, refused to stop at a wider area in the road where both vehicles could pass.

“He come right under me and when I stop, that’s when I feel the truck slipping.”

“The truck just flip over down the bank. It roll and roll and roll.”

The vehicle, TT 46, which rolled more than 150 feet to the Yambou River below, was loaded with Rabacca sand.

Not only did he lose the load, but more than likely, the vehicle will also be scrapped.

The driver/passenger compartment of the truck was so crushed that the first persons on the scene believed that Marshall had either fallen out of the vehicle or was dead.

Instead, he was trapped for more than twenty minutes before he was discovered and rescued.

He was rushed to the Levi Latham Health Centre, then to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.

At the hospital, Marshall complained of some pain in his right side and leg, and was surprised that his leg was not broken.

In an ironic twist, Marshall believed that not wearing a seatbelt saved his life.

“If I was wearing a seatbelt, I won’t be able to move in the position that save me, I woulda been trapped in the seat.”

At the time of the accident, the owner of the truck Eldon Samuel was traveling behind the truck and saw the event unfold.

He believes that the incident could have been avoided if the van driver had stopped at the wider section of the road.

He believes that it would be impossible to get the truck up from the river, and may have to consider the truck a write off.

Marshall had been driving the truck for just over three weeks.

He had many fender benders during his 25 years of driving, but admitted that this was the worst.(JJ)