Community in shock, speed ruled out in unusual horror fatal
The semi-trailer had just left Imbil’s Superior Wood sawmill at 2pm yesterday and was heading to Gympie with a 23-tonne load of woodchip
Gympie
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IMBIL police officer Bill Greer said as well as being an absolute tragedy, the truck crash that killed a 50-year-old Glenwood man in the Mary Valley yesterday was unusual.
The semi-trailer had just left Imbil's Superior Wood sawmill on Yabba Creek Rd at 2pm and was heading to Gympie with a 23-tonne load of woodchip.
Just one kilometre from the sawmill the truck left the road and rolled - landing upside down on the steep embankment that drops down to Yabba Creek.
The driver is thought to have died on impact, Senior Constable Greer said.
The cab of the truck was crushed and the man remained trapped for hours before emergency crews could access the cabin, which was upside down halfway down the bank.
"It's really unusual - speed can't have been a factor," Sen Cnst Greer said.
"He knew the road. The truck would have been going 75/80km an hour at the most and it's an 80km zone."
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He said the driver would not have had time to get speed up in the one kilometre after leaving the sawmill, especially navigating the incline of the road leading up to where the truck rolled.
"We are looking at medical and mechanical (problems as a factor)," the Imbil constable said.
Police closed Yabba Creek Rd yesterday afternoon and a recovery team from Clayton's Towing began removing the truck from the bank at 5pm, with several of the road's guard rails requiring removal too.
The truck was not fully recovered until 9.30pm - taking four and a half hours.
If the truck had rolled into the creek, it would have taken days to recover, Sen Const Greer said.
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The full load of bark that spilt on to the bank would be left there, he said, a decision approved by the Environmental Protection Agency as it was untreated pine.
No diesel had spilt into the creek, he said.
Sen Cnst Greer said it was the first time he could remember in 15 years that there had been an accident on the road between the sawmill and Imbil.
It was the first fatal in the Imbil region for this year.
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