One dies in Bayelsa auto crash
One person was on Friday killed in a fatal accident which occurred around the PDP Road Junction along the Isaac Boro Expressway in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.
The deceased was said to be the motor boy of a truck that was involved in the accident with a tipper and a tricycle popularly called Keke.
A few persons, including three female passengers and the Keke rider, as well as the truck driver were injured in the accident.
Some personnel of the Federal Road Safety Commission arrived at the scene shortly afterward and evacuated the corpse of the victim.
The incident caused traffic jam as vehicles were restricted to one lane of the road around the scene.
An eyewitness said the deceased got trapped and was crushed under the truck after jumping down from the swerving vehicle as the driver tried to control it after hitting the Keke and the tipper, which fell on the road and spilled the diesel in its tank.
According to the eyewitness, who did not want his name to be mentioned in the print, the truck driver maneuvered the vehicle away from crashing into a petrol station on the left side of the PDP Road before it was forced to a stop by the perimeter fence of a popular relaxation bar on the right side where it killed the conductor.
He said, “The driver of the tipper was trying to make a U-turn at the junction when the truck, coming on the same lane from the Opolo-Biogbolo side of the expressway, hit the tipper and the Keke.
“After hitting the tipper and the Keke, he curved his hand, maybe he was trying to control the steering, and entered inside this (PDP) road, and finally stopped here (perimeter fence). Before he could stop here, the conductor tried to jump down, and where he fell, there was no space for him to escape to anywhere. So he died under the tyres.”
The tricycle rider, Melvin Goodnews, who survived the accident with the three female passengers he was carrying, said he had slowed down and was waiting for the tipper to turn when the truck hit his Keke and it tumbled.
“All I can remember is that my Keke tumbled and I was just seeing tyres passing. If the truck didn’t hit the tipper, it would have killed all of us because I was carrying three women inside my Keke and one of them has a big cut on her leg,” he said.
Although the tipper driver was not seen at the scene of the accident, his motor boy, Eze Cashmir, said they had navigated the u-turn and were waiting for the other lane to clear when the truck suddenly hit their vehicle.
He said, “As we were trying to turn, suddenly our vehicle started staggering and I thought that my driver had climbed the median, then there was pressure. There was a hit and we fell. I managed to come out from the window (of the fallen tipper). I managed to turn off the engine and looked for my phone and that of my driver.
“As I moved to the other side, people told me that it was the long truck that hit us and somebody is trapped under it.”
