A Paramin mother is thanking the driver of an Amalgamated Sanitation Company garbage truck, who yesterday did all he could to steer the out-of-control, stalled vehicle from ploughing into her and her two daughters in Paramin.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, thanked driver Harold Timothy for his efforts and wished him a speedy recovery. She said she was walking with her children around 8.30 am when residents shouted for them to move out of the way as the truck came barrelling towards them.
“I thankful that the driver did what he did to save us. I was seeing he trying to maintain the truck so it wouldn’t hit us, it was happening so fast,” she said.
To the driver, she said, “Thank you! Whatever you do I am thankful for that, the family from Paramin is thankful.”
According to eyewitnesses, the driver tried to start the truck after it stalled while the crew was collecting garbage along the winding hillside. Timothy then attempted to apply brakes on two occasions but when this failed and the engine cut off after a second attempt, he attempted to bank the truck, now at full speed down the Saut D’eau Road, on the mountainside and nearby drain. When that failed the truck slammed into the back of a Nissan B12 before a bamboo patch stopped it from going over a cliff.
Residents hailed Timothy as a hero for his attempts to prevent a possible catastrophe. Aaron Celestine, who was in his garden at the side of the mountain when the accident took place, said it was the prayers of the people of Paramin and Timothy’s quick thinking that saved the mother and her children from sure death.
Gerald Gould, the garbage truck’s loader, said he saw his life flash before his eyes on seeing the truck racing down the hill. After last week’s accident that claimed the life of a sanitation worker at the Beetham Landfill, Gould, the father of four, said he was grateful for life.
“I feel very good to know nobody get damaged and nobody died. The driver do well. The last man who died in the dump cross my mind, because they done tell me watch myself already, so they tell me to be very sceptical on the truck. I feeling very good that I survive this so I can see my children again,” Gould said.
The man Gould referred to was Junior Warner, 40, who was crushed by a garbage truck while offloading garbage at the Beetham Landfill last Tuesday.
Gould and some of the residents managed to take Timothy out of the truck. Timothy complained of pains to the chest, neck and back and was taken to hospital and later released.
The Amalgamated Sanitation Company, which has been hired by the Diego Martin Regional Corporation to collect garbage in the area, is not a stranger to media attention. In 2005, after one of their trucks stalled in Diego Martin, an irate resident killed loader Reynold James, who dared argue with him after being asked to move the vehicle. In another incident, a worker was hit with a glass bottle after he asked a cyclist to move his bike from the middle of the road. In 2012, the home of the company’s owner, Jawaharlal Deosaran, was gutted by fire.