Pinned By Truck For 12 Hours

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30095, 1 April 1963, Page 14

Pinned By Truck For 12 Hours

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND. Mar. 31 Paralysed from the waist down after being trapped under his truck for nearly 12 hours on Friday night, a Pukekohe dairy farmer. Mr Brian Albert Vjfolfgram, still managed to smile as he lay in bed at the Middlemore Hospital today. Mr Wolfgram, aged 38. married with three children, was admitted to the hospital on Saturday for observation of possible spinal injuries His condition is quite fair after an operation on Saturday afternoon Mr Wolfgram had been visiting a friend at Puni on Friday night. Near the top of a steep hill on Wright road. Pukekohe. Mr Wolfgram stopped his truck when the radiator began to boil He got out to put water in it and the truck began to run backwards. Mr Wolfgram jumped into the cab, but was unable to apply the brakes before the vehicle ran through a fence and plunged 75 feet down a bank The driver’s cab was flat-

tened and Mr Wolfgram was pinned face down in the wrecked truck He had one foot caught in the door and the other in the steering wheel The back of the seat was pressing against Mr Wolfgram and he could not free himself.

1 had my wrist watch on and I was watching the time.” said Mr Wolfgram today “I knew the council was working on the road and thought: -11. I will get out of here when they start work about 7 a.m.’ Then I suddenly realised it was Saturday “I dozed off occasionally and every nnw and then I’d give out a yell.” he said. Mr Wolfgram was repo.rted missing by his wife and he was found early on Saturday morning Two breakdown trucks and snecial jacks were brought to the sceme to raise the truck and free him. The crash occurred about 11 p.m on Friday, and Mr Wolfgram was freed shortly before IT a m. oh Saturday.