A security man with the Central Regional House of Chiefs, identified as Mr Awumesi, was crushed to death on Saturday morning by a fully loaded cargo truck at Nkafoa Junction in Cape Coast.
The truck with the registration AW 3475 – 21, had loaded bales of assorted second-hand items from Accra and was headed for Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire.
It however, got involved in an accident around 10:10 hours at the Nkafoa Junction, falling over on its passenger side and trapping the victim for several hours before his lifeless body could be retrieved.
Personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service and Police Service rushed to the scene a few minutes after the incident, and with the support of some community members and eyewitnesses, retrieved the body of the deceased after over five hours of efforts to lift the truck.
The driver of the truck, however, escaped unscathed but his mate sustained minor bruises on his face.
The driver explained that he attempted to save a sprinter bus which had wrongfully overtaken him on some strips but unfortunately lost balance and landed in the ditch, killing the man.
However, some eyewitnesses who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) indicated that the driver, moving at a top speed, had a brake failure some 300 metres away.
To avoid hitting some two sprinter buses ahead of him on the recently constructed sharp strips, he quickly turned to the shoulder of the road and lost balance, causing the truck to fall on the man.
They said the man had stopped by the roadside to urinate on his way back from a canteen and could not escape quickly enough before the truck fell on him.
The accident caused a major gridlock on that section of the Accra-Takoradi main highway.
DOII Abdul Wasiu Hudu, the Central Regional Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the National Fire Service, who was present at the scene of the accident, said the rescue team responded to the accident call at 10:15 hours and reached the scene at 10:24 hours.
He said after hours of frantic efforts, a towing truck was engaged to lift the truck, revealing that the man had been buried in the sand under the truck.
He said the body of the deceased was handed over to the police and deposited at the morgue of the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.
GNA
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