Runaway truck goes on rampage

2010-01-19 22:59

Johannesburg - A runaway truck on Tuesday flattened concrete fences like dominoes and rammed a car into a garage in Roodepoort before finally coming to a stop in the last of three plots.

Six people were seriously injured in the incident.

The owner of the house raced from Sandton to his home in Helderkruin, hysterical with fear that his pregnant wife had been trapped in the house by the runaway truck.

"You must come quickly. A truck has flattened your garage and almost flattened your entire house," Jakkie van Sittert, a former policeman and a neighbour, said when he phoned Conrad van Staden, 26.

But fortunately Ingrid van Staden, 27, wasn't at home when the incident took place at about 09:00 at the corner of Ruhamah avenue and Ou Klip road.

Brakes probably failed

The soft drink delivery truck's brakes presumably failed, which meant the driver couldn't stop at the T-junction. He lost control of the truck.

It hit a Mazda Sting belonging to Kevin Pillay, 38, an insurance consultant, and shoved it several metres further, into the Van Stadens' garage in Ou Klip road.

Pillay's car was wedged diagonally in the garage and he was seriously injured.

The truck ploughed on like a steam-roller flattening the concrete fences between the plots.

Wife watches in tears

The 16-wheel vehicle only came to a stop after it had ploughed through the third concrete fence. Emergency services struggled to stabilise Pillay in his trapped Mazda.

An office worker informed Neelavani Pillay, 35, about the incident in which her husband was injured. She watched in tears as paramedics struggled for two hours to free him.

They used iron poles to prop up the damaged garage's structures in order to safely free Pillay. He was then taken to the Flora clinic in Roodepoort in a serious but stable condition.

Van Sittert said he was reading a newspaper when he heard a loud crash.

"When I got outside I saw a huge plume of smoke. These kinds of accidents often happen here on the corner."

It was then that he phoned Van Staden with the disturbing news about his garage.

"When I couldn't reach her [Ingrid] on her cellphone after my neighbour phoned me, I was very worried and rushed over here," said Van Staden.

House might be demolished

His wife, on her way back from the gynaecologist, only phoned him when she saw the number of emergency vehicles in the adjacent roads.

Hours after the crash, the Van Stadens still weren't sure whether their three cats with their litters and two of their three dogs had survived. Their third dog, a Labrador, had jumped over the wall to hide in a neighbour's yard.

The damage to the Van Stadens' year-old house cannot be determined yet, but it could amount to hundreds of thousands of rands.

On Tuesday the couple had to find other accommodation, as what was left of their house wasn't safe. It might have to be demolished.

One of the occupants of the truck was taken by helicopter to the Milpark hospital in Johannesburg in a critical condition, while the other four were taken to the Krugersdorp Private Hospital in a serious but stable condition, said Percy Morokane, spokesperson for Johannesburg emergency services.