Eight
Vanguard staff escaped death by whisker yesterday, after a 40-foot container fell off
a truck and landed on five vehicles, four of which were Vanguard’s, at Berger
Yard Bus Stop, along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, Lagos.
The vehicles, two Toyota Hilux
pick-up vans with number plates AKD 509 AH and AKD 507 AH; a bus, AGL 51 BJ,
and a black Hyundai Verna, JJJ 513 CM, were for circulation of Vanguard newspapers
.
The fourth vehicle belongs to a staff
of Julius Berger Construction Company.
The vehicles were parked by the
entrance to Julius Berger’s Euro 65 facility premises because of the perennial
traffic gridlock along the expressway, which usually affected the circulation
of the national daily.
Vanguard’s circulation
members of staff usually cross the expressway with piles of the newspaper on
their heads, to load the vehicles, for onward distribution in Lagos and the
South-West.
However, yesterday, the circulation
staff were said to have finished loading vehicles leaving for the South-West
states.
They were on the verge of loading
those heading for Ikorodu, Badagry, Kakawa and Ajah areas of Lagos, when a
speeding truck, with number plate LND 258 XL, veered off its lane. Its
container fell on the parked vehicles.
The truck driver, his escort and the Motor Boy were flung in different
directions.
Motorists trapped in traffic also
abandoned their vehicles and ran for safety, apparently thinking it was a bomb
explosion.
The truck driver and his motor boy
were said to have been rushed to New Nigeria Hospital on Dillion Street,
Kirikiri, from where they were referred to Lagos University Teaching Hospital,
LUTH, Idi-Araba.
‘Driver was smoking Igbo’
The escort and a clearing and
forwarding agent were arrested by policemen from Trinity Street.
At the station, the escort revealed
that the driver was smoking Indian hemp, when the accident happened.
He said: “We left Tin-Can Island Port
at 2am and the driver took out a wrap of hemp.
“As we were approaching Berger Yard
Bus Stop, he asked the motor boy to wrap a second one for him.
“He had barely puffed four times when
the accident occurred. I do not smoke and I did not feel comfortable with the
whiff of the Marijuana. But there was nothing I could do.”
Source: Vanguard News
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