TRAPPED UNDER TRUCK

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1032, 24 July 1930, Page 12

TRAPPED UNDER TRUCK

DRIVER PINNED AFTER CRASH DOWN HILL UNHURT WHEN RESCUED Press Association BLENHEIM, Wednesday. After having been pinned by the neck for more than seven hours beneath an upturned motor-truck, Mr. Mervyn F. Jeffries, of Grassmere, a farmer, had the amazing good fortune to emerge unscathed from his unpleasant experience. At one o’clock on a recent morning Mr. Jeffries was driving from Blenheim to his home at Grassmere in a motor-truck of the light delivery type, and when proceeding down the southern side of the Lion’s Back the vehicle for some unaccountable reason suddenly left the road. From the road the hill slopes away steeply, and as the accident happened well up the incline there was a considerable distance down to the floor of the valley. Fortunately, however, after the truck had rolled over once it came up against a fence, which proved strong enough to hold it. Mr. Jeffries was tossed from the seat, and found himself pinned by the neck and so held by the weight of the machine that, struggle as he would, he could not free himself. Providentially, the side of the truck was resting upon a boulder, which was just high enough to keep the weight of the vehicle off his neck. From 1 a.m, Mr. Jeffries had to remain in this trying predicament until S a.m., when an Awatere County workman happened to see him, and effected a welcome rescue. Mr. Jeffries did not even suffer serious ill-effects from the lengthy period of exposure, and is now none the worse for his experience. The truck was not seriously damaged, the hood and the windscreen being chiefly affected.