DRIVER CRUSHED BY BEAMS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30901, 6 November 1965, Page 1

DRIVER CRUSHED BY BEAMS

A truck driver was killed when a load of concrete bridge beams on the deck of his articulated vehicle moved forward and wrecked the cab of the truck in Clarence street about 4 p.m. yesterday. He was

Lance Frederick Butler, aged 33, married, of 29 Glynne crescent, Spreydon.

The police believe that Mr Butler braked suddenly in a line of traffic. The truck was being driven north in Clarence street and was about 20 yards from the ligbtscontrolled intersection of Clarence street and Riccarton road. Mr Butler was crushed beneath the beams. It took two hours to extricate his body from the wrecked cab. A mobile crane was used to lift one of the bridge beams from

the truck on to the road and move the other two back from the cab. Eight traffic officers and five policemen were required to direct traffic and control those who flocked to the scene. The beams were being taken from the yard of Certified Concrete, Ltd., near the scene of the accident, to the site of the new northern outlet bridges over the Waimakariri river. The three beams weighed several tons.

The truck belongs to Durham Transport, Ltd., which employed Mr Butler. The beams were lying flat on the deck of the truck, and the back of the cab was forced forward and the roof twisted when the beams moved forward. A fire engine stood by because the fuel tank of the truck was leaking. The truck was towed away by a breakdown van about 6.30 pjn.