By Kath Gannaway
A LOG-TRUCK driver was lucky to escape with minor injuries after his truck crashed on the Black Spur on Thursday, 5 January.
It was down to luck, and timing, also that other drivers travelling towards the crash site were held up behind a slow-travelling van, arriving just seconds after the crash.
The Castella truck driver was travelling west on Maroondah Highway about 2pm when the incident happened about five kilometres from Healesville.
As CFA and police cleared the road, Leading Senior Constable Chris Grasby told the Mail it appeared the trailer clipped the embankment as the truck came around a bend, tipping the trailer and sending the truck across the other side of the road into a tree.
UK visitors Phillip and Vanessa Maile, a nurse, were on their way to Marysville, behind the slow van, when they were confronted with a cloud of dust as they came around the corner.
Mr Maile said it was an horrific scene as the dust cleared and they could see the driver in the cabin lodged against a tree and the road strewn with logs.
“We saw a hand waving and the driver calling to get him out,” Mr Maile said. “When we saw the hand we realised we could do something.”
With the cabin hanging over the embankment attempts to get to the driver failed, but he managed to climb down without assistance before shock set in.
Unable to get a phone signal, Mr Maile drove to Healesville to report the crash while his wife attended to the driver, providing basic first-aid, keeping him cool and keeping him talking.
“I could assess pretty quickly that nothing major was going on so it was just about dealing with the shock, keeping the flies off and keeping him talking with a bit of humour and reassurance,” Mrs Maile said.
Mr Maile said he was tremendously proud of his wife who sat with the injured driver, making bad jokes and keeping his spirits up for about 45 minutes until the ambulance arrived.
“If it had been a more serious injury, it may not have ended so well,” he said.
He added that they reflected on their luck, despite the frustration, at being stuck behind a slow van on the Spur.
“It has certainly crossed our minds that if we’d been a minute further ahead … we kind of know what would have happened,” he said.
