Driver: Seat belt saved my life

Messy deaths, multiple funerals and endless grief were on the cards last Saturday morning at Beachmont.

Thankfully, however, at around 10 am, when a truck (TQ517) ran off the road, broke a light pole, flattened a fence and went over the steep embankment, eventually crashing into and becoming precariously perched on a garage, no one died.{{more}}

Why?

“If wasn’t for the seat belts, none of us (the three that were sitting in front) would have been here,” was the answer given by Rudolph Williams, the driver of the truck involved in the accident.

Williams explained that he and his five passengers were heading into town from Fancy with a load of tania.

Admittedly tired from two consecutive days of rising in the wee hours of the morning, Williams told SEARCHLIGHT that when they reached Argyle, he knew he was struggling to stay awake.

“When I reached Argyle a heaviness came over me, so I stopped and washed my face and walked up and down a bit,’ he explained.

He said that he felt a bit refreshed, but just as he came around the corner where the accident took place, the heaviness returned and that was it – the truck careened off the road and headed down the embankment.

“I felt like I was out of the truck, but when I catch myself, the seatbelt had me there pressed in,” Williams explained.

The windscreen had popped out, and had it not been for the seat belt, the three of them in the front would have almost certainly been thrown from the truck, with devastating consequences.

As it turns out, only Iasha Stay, one of the three that were in the truck’s tray was kept over night for observation at the hospital. The others were examined, treated for minor injuries and discharged.

“I will advise everybody to wear their seatbelts because I know it saved my life,” Williams said.

Besides Williams and young Stay, the other passengers in the truck were the owner of the truck, Alphonso Ballantyne, Andy Stay, Kawandee Lewis and Dorian Bowens.

Ironically, the truck that was transporting the agricultural produce crashed into the yard of the offices of the Eastern Caribbean Trade and Agriculture Development Organization (ECTAD).

One senior traffic police officer told SEARCHLIGHT that while it is good that the occupants were wearing seatbelts, the fact that three persons were in the tray of the truck is cause for concern.(KJ)