Mona Vale Road: Truck crash near cemetery leaves driver with broken leg
A quick thinking truck driver, whose truck lost its brakes on a busy northern beaches road, managed to veer away from traffic and jump from the cabin before it crashed.
Manly
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The driver of an out of control truck managed to steer the vehicle away from stationary traffic on the northern beaches before he leapt from the cabin and broke his leg before it crashed.
Witnesses say the Nissan, carrying tonnes of sand and cement, seemed to have lost its brakes as it downhill on Mona Vale Rd, at Mona Vale about 8am on Thursday.
But the driver, a man in his 40s, fearing he might collide with cars that had slowed ahead of him, pulled the steering wheel to the left and steered the speeding truck between concrete safety barriers and into a roadworks site.
He managed to open the driver’s side and leap out just before the vehicle slammed into an earthen embankment, large sandstone blocks and a steel mesh fence.
The impact tore of the truck’s bullbar and one tyre as well as badly damaging the front axle and the lower part of its engine.
It came to rest in a section of the roadworks site — about 200m west of Mona Vale Cemetery — for the Mona Vale Rd (East) upgrade project.
The driver suffered a badly broken leg when he jumped from his cabin and landed next to a large excavator.
“The excavator driver thought he’d run the bloke over,” a witness who asked not to be named, said.
“But people saw the driver jump push open his door and jump for it. It looks like he’s lost his brakes coming down the hill.”
No one else was injured.
There were initial concerns that the driver has suffered multiple injuries. Three ambulances and the CareFlight emergency helicopter were called in.
But a CareFlight spokeswoman said the medical crew from the helicopter, which had landed in a substation reserve in nearby Samuel St, was not needed.
The man was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital in a stable condition.
Northern Beaches Police are investigating the incident.
Traffic on Mona Vale Rd was badly affected.
A spokesman for Transport for NSW said: “As this incident is subject to a police investigation it would be inappropriate for Transport for NSW to comment at this time.”
This incident came just a week after an out-of-control semi-trailer smashed over a safety barrier at a road works site for the Mona Vale Rd upgrade at Ingleside.
The A massive prime mover hauling a trailer carrying a shipping container, crashed off Mona the road on a down hill run at 6.50am last Thursday. That incident is also being investigated by police.