Truck driver killed after failing to negotiate turn

– as truck runs off road, crashes through fences and comes to a stop under homeowner’s shed

A lorry driver is now dead after failing to negotiate a turn, running off the road, and crashing into a vehicle shed in a private yard. The fences to two private properties were also damaged in the process.

The dead man has been identified as 67-year-old O’Neil Adrian of Woodley Park Village, West Coast Berbice (WCB), Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice).
The crash occurred on Saturday afternoon.
According to the police, Adrian was driving motor lorry GLL 1539, and was proceeding east along Cotton Tree Public Road. As the driver was negotiating a bend, he lost control of the vehicle, which collided with concrete fences and came to a stop in a vehicle shed. As a result, the driver was pinned inside the vehicle.
The police said that with the assistance of public-spirited citizens, the driver was taken out and rushed to the Fort Wellington Public Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Homeowner, Bhoomesh Shivnarine said that, sometime between 16:30h and 17:00h on Saturday he was at his Lot 24, Cotton Tree Village home when he heard the impact.
“I was in the backyard and all I heard was a lot of noise from an impact and there was a lot of dust, and when I ran and came in front, I saw the truck. The driver was inside, and the people came and they tried to get him out. We tied the rope on the steering wheel and we were able to pull the steering wheel and then take him out.”
According to the villager, the injured driver was talking as they were trying to get him from the wreckage.

“The guys said they called the police but nobody showed up. And then I called the police and when the police came, they said they did not receive any message,” Shivnarine added.
The fences of two properties, and a car ramp which held some vehicle rims that were being stored in the shed, were damaged.
Meanwhile, the wife of the lorry driver, Chitraika Beharry, explained that the now dead man worked for a private contractor, driving a lorry that transported cane harvesters.
According to Beharry, her husband left home at about 06:30h on Saturday to go to work and returned midday for lunch, and she has not seen him again.
The grieving widow said she received a call that her husband was being transported to the Fort Wellington hospital.
“When we went there, the doctor told us to wait outside, and I waited and then they called me in and they told me that he is no more. They told me that he had internal bleeding in his stomach and that is what made him stop breathing – his heart give up. They took him and did X-rays, that is what the doctor told me,” the now widowed woman said.
The couple had been together for forty years and has one child.
The police said the body is currently at the Bailey’s Funeral Home awaiting a post mortem examination.