Vanguard staff escape death as 40-ft container fell on their vehicle, truck driver was smoking Indian Hemp

 

Eight Vanguard staff narrowly escaped death yesterday, after a 40-foot container fell off a truck and landed on five vehicles, four of which were Vanguard’s, at Berger Yard Bus Stop, along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, Lagos.  

The vehicles, two Toyota Hilux pick-up vans with number plates AKD 509 AH and AKD 507 AH; a bus, AGL 51 BJ, and a black Hyundai Verna, JJJ 513 CM, were for circulation of Vanguard newspapers.

The fourth vehicle belongs to a staff of Julius Berger Construction Company.

The vehicles were parked by the entrance to Julius Berger’s Euro 65 facility premises because of the perennial traffic gridlock along the expressway, which usually affected the circulation of the national daily.

Vanguard’s circulation staff usually cross the expressway with piles of the newspaper on their heads, to load the vehicles, for onward distribution in Lagos and the South-West.

However, yesterday, the circulation staff were said to have finished loading the vehicles leaving for the South-West states.

They were on the verge of loading those heading for Ikorodu, Badagry, Kakawa and Ajah areas of Lagos, when a speeding truck, with number plate LND 258 XL, veered off its lane. And the container it was carrying fell on the parked vehicles.

The truck driver, his escort and the Motor Boy were flung in different directions.

Motorists trapped in traffic also abandoned their vehicles and ran for safety, apparently thinking it was a bomb explosion.

The truck driver and his motor boy were said to have been rushed to New Nigeria Hospital on Dillion Street, Kirikiri, from where they were referred to Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Idi-Araba.

The escort and a clearing and forwarding agent were arrested by policemen from Trinity Street.

At the station, the escort revealed that the driver was smoking Indian hemp, when the accident happened.

He said: “We left Tin-Can Island Port at 2am and the driver took out a wrap of hemp.

“As we were approaching Berger Yard Bus Stop, he asked the motor boy to wrap a second one for him.

“He had barely puffed four times when the accident occurred. I do not smoke and I did not feel comfortable with the whiff of the Marijuana. But there was nothing I could do.”