RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fight­ing for breath af­ter his truck fell in­to a riv­er when a ma­jor bridge in Moru­ga col­lapsed un­der him on Sat­ur­day, truck dri­ver Ter­rence Joseph clawed his way to safe­ty with the help of three men.

But while he was thank­ful to be alive, Joseph re­called how his res­cuers robbed him of $1,400 af­ter sav­ing him. This was all the mon­ey Joseph had to pay bills and buy food for his fam­i­ly.

The fa­ther of one told Guardian Me­dia that up to yes­ter­day he still had not re­ceived med­ical treat­ment.

Re­call­ing the or­deal, Joseph, 39, of Mara­bel­la, said he col­lect­ed a truck­load of crush ma­te­r­i­al and went to Ed­ward Trace, Moru­ga, to drop it off at a hunter’s camp, where they were build­ing a dri­ve­way.

While tra­vers­ing the forest­ed road, Joseph said he came up­on a group of scrap met­al deal­ers who of­fered to take him to the lo­ca­tion. 

“The scrap met­al deal­ers crossed the bridge first and I fol­lowed, then all of a sud­den I heard a loud sound and all I saw was trees, the sky and the riv­er as the truck went down with a thud.”

Joseph was thrown from the dri­ver’s seat to the back of the cab and the truck be­gan sink­ing.

The scrap met­al deal­ers came in af­ter him.

“I heard one of them pound­ing the glass and say­ing, ‘Don’t wor­ry big man, I here. Fight your way out.’”

He said an­oth­er one of his res­cuers jumped down in­to the riv­er and said, “‘Breathe, catch your­self. Try and come out’. By then the back of the truck was sub­merged,” Joseph said.

He added that his res­cuer even­tu­al­ly opened the door and helped him on­to the side rail­ing. 

“I slipped and fell in­to the riv­er and they came back down for me. By then I had swal­lowed half the riv­er wa­ter. They threw down a strap and I wrapped the strap around my hand. Then I scaled the riv­er wall. Part of the wall was dis­lodged but they pulled me up,” Joseph added.

He said in a con­fused state, he pulled out his wal­let and his Sam­sung Galaxy S20 phone.

“One of the men told me, ‘boy, your foot bleed­ing. Go and wash out. That is riv­er wa­ter you went in’,” Joseph said.

By the time he washed out the blood and came back, his wal­let was emp­ty and his res­cuers and his phone were gone.

Joseph said he was now wor­ried about how he would pay his bills.

“I am hap­py to be alive, they re­al­ly saved me. I have a sev­en-year-old son who needs things and school open­ing. I have all my bills to pay but don’t wor­ry, God will pro­vide,” he said.

Joseph said the truck will have to re­main in the for­est un­til the bridge is fixed.

“There is no way that the truck can be brought out. There are four wood­en bridges on the oth­er side and the truck too heavy to pass,” he said.

He said he stayed in the forest­ed area un­til night­fall and when he went for med­ical treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, there was a long wait and he was fear­ful of be­com­ing in­fect­ed with COVID-19. He then went to Cou­va Hos­pi­tal but there were more long lines and he again left, fear­ful of con­tract­ing the virus while seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion.

Joseph said he want­ed as­sis­tance in get­ting med­ical aid.

Mean­while, res­i­dent Leo Mor­gan said the col­lapse of the bridge will cause hard­ship to over 75 farm­ers from Moru­ga. He said he plants eight acres of land and now that the bridge is gone, there was no way to bring out the pro­duce.

“We want the Gov­ern­ment to look at fix­ing this sit­u­a­tion now be­cause with­out that bridge is plen­ty peo­ple will suf­fer,” Mor­gan said.

He ex­plained that some time ago, A&V Drilling was do­ing works in the Ed­ward Trace forests and they used a steel beam to prop the bridge. Mor­gan said oth­er bridges in the area were al­so on the brink of col­lapse.

Coun­cil­lor for Moru­ga/Table­land Joseph Lo­rant said a team from the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion will vis­it the area to­day. He said since the pan­dem­ic, many peo­ple had been plant­i­ng the area to pro­vide for their fam­i­lies, es­pe­cial­ly since un­em­ploy­ment was high.

“This area is high­ly tra­versed by Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and oth­er en­er­gy com­pa­nies, so I am not sure what will hap­pen to­mor­row (to­day),” he said.

The Cor­po­ra­tion will close off the road once a site vis­it is done. In the mean­time, the Cor­po­ra­tion is ask­ing peo­ple to stay away from the bridge.

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment last night, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the bridge does not fall un­der the purview of the min­istry.

“How­ev­er, we will sup­port the re­spon­si­ble cor­po­ra­tion to have it re­solved,” Sinanan added.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Joseph with pay­ing his bills can con­tact him at 473-5306.