Early on a mid-June morning Neville Green was taking a pre-load of logs south on State Highway 35 from his Tolaga Bay home to the Eastland Port in Gisborne. It’s a familiar run for Neville in the 2018 Kenworth T659 he drives for log transport company, Pacific Haulage.
“The port opens at 4am so I left home about three-ish. It was about 3.20am when I was climbing up the hill which we call B5. I keep my lights on low beam going up there because it’s easy to blind the drivers coming over the top of the hill,” he says.
“In the moonlight I could see something up ahead and as I got closer, I could see four tyres and the underneath of a car sitting on its side. All its lights were out.”
Neville says the car was sitting across the centreline of the highway with a significant amount of debris and broken glass strewn across the road.
“I pulled up, switched my hazards on and put my lamp on my head before I jumped out. About the time I got to the car another truck was coming the other way and it stopped.
“When I walked around the car, I could see the roof was caved in, the windscreen was all smashed and then I could see a hand.
“The driver’s side window had blown out and when I peeked in, I could see there was an older guy in there.
“I called `are you alright in there?’ and I heard him groan.
“I ran back to my truck to get my gloves and started to remove the windscreen. I could see he had a big gash on his head, and he was bleeding profusely.”
Neville made sure the other truck driver had called an ambulance and had the scene under control, then he found jackets that had been inside the crashed car.
“The guy was hanging from his seatbelt across to the passenger side with his head kind of up against the roof.
“With my left arm I tried to prop his head up and I used my right hand to hold the jackets and apply enough pressure to slow the bleeding.
“It was about half an hour later that the fire brigade arrived and cut the roof off.”
Adrenalin kicks in
Neville has been back at home on the East Coast for about three years, after driving trucks and road trains in Australia for 20 years. He’d previously driven for Pacific Haulage before heading to Australia.
“I have been at a lot of accidents, and I’ve done a lot of training both in Australia and at Pacific Haulage,” he says.
“One time in Queensland I pulled a guy out of a car that was on fire. He was knocked out.”
He says a combination of training and experience kicks in when faced with an accident.
“The adrenalin kicks in and you secure the scene and work out what to do next from there,” he says.
This story has a much happier ending than some of the accidents Neville has attended.
“After I drove into town, I...
