Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter walk­ing away from a fright­en­ing four-ve­hi­cle col­li­sion on the Gol­con­da Con­nec­tor Road, a truck dri­ver is warn­ing oth­er dri­vers to slow down and be re­spon­si­ble.

Forty-eight-year-old Andy Lal­la, em­ployed with a hard­ware build­ing re­sources com­pa­ny, was head­ing to Pe­nal with the com­pa­ny truck, ac­com­pa­nied by lor­ry man Joseph Vin­cent, 38, when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred some­time af­ter 10 am yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said ini­tial in­for­ma­tion sug­gests that a car swerved in­to the path of Lal­la’s truck, which was trav­el­ling in the op­po­site di­rec­tion.

The col­li­sion then ex­tend­ed to in­volve a trail­er truck and a Hilux van.

Lal­la, who in­jured his right shoul­der, re­count­ed the ter­ri­fy­ing mo­ments.

“I was com­ing down to go to the high­way. I saw the Note cross and com­ing on my side and it done hit me al­ready. The truck start to sway, I try to hold the truck not to go in­to them be­cause it was go­ing on that side... Try­ing to pull back the truck, it wrenched my shoul­der,” he said.

Lal­la, who has been a truck dri­ver for over 17 years with­out ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a se­ri­ous ac­ci­dent, stressed that his quick ac­tion pre­vent­ed a head-on col­li­sion.

“Peo­ple need to be more care­ful what they do on the na­tion’s road. Take your time. Lucky thing I cut down on my dri­ving speed. It might have been worse. If I did not act in time, he would have hit straight head-on to me.”

Lal­la said he has been dri­ving for over 17 years with­out an ac­ci­dent. He was grate­ful that he was not se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

“I told my lor­ry man, God was on our side to­day be­cause every­thing hap­pened so fast,” he said. Vin­cent was al­so thank­ful to be alive.

“Thank God for life—it did not end up worse. We were with­in reg­u­la­tion speed.”

Vin­cent es­caped with­out in­jury.

Po­lice said the dri­vers, as well as a pas­sen­ger in the trail­er truck, were tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

San Fer­nan­do po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.