Firefighters, residents and motorists form a human train to get this truck driver on the stretcher to an ambulance after he was freed from the wreckage of a three-truck crash on Spur Tree Hill on Thursday. The man was pinned between two trucks for about two hours. (Photos: Kasey Williams)
Spur Tree chaos
Truck driver freed after being pinned between two heavy units for two hours
SPUR TREE, Manchester — There were frantic scenes on Spur Tree Hill main road on Thursday morning as firefighters, police, and a wrecker crew worked feverishly to extricate a truck driver trapped between two heavy units following a three-truck collision.
Following a nearly two-hour wait the truck driver was removed from the wreckage and a human chain was formed by firefighters, residents, and passing motorists to lift the injured man over a wall to a waiting ambulance. He has been admitted in stable condition at hospital.
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The crash, which involved two box trucks and a fuel truck, occurred minutes after 8:00 am and left the major road impassable for hours.
According to eyewitness accounts, one of the box trucks was travelling downhill when the driver lost control and crashed into the back of the second box truck. The impact sent the second vehicle into the back of the fuel truck. The driver of the first box truck was pinned down while his two co-workers escaped unharmed. Some motorists took the narrow and winding alternative route through Plowden in south Manchester while others were unable to move.
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A restaurant worker told the Jamaica Observer that she heard when the collision happened.
“I was in the kitchen a little after eight o’clock, and while I was at the sink I just heard a sound like ‘bam!’ and when I looked through the window I realised that some drinks bottles and some parts of the trucks were just sailing down the road. Then when I came out I saw that the trucks collided… I saw people running to help,” she said.
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In the aftermath of the crash Mayor of Mandeville Donovan Mitchell called on the Government to fast-track plans for the Spur Tree Hill bypass.
“We are looking forward to seeing if the Government is going to do the extra piece of highway to relieve some of the trucks going along the Spur Tree main road, because it is very steep and problematic to persons who are probably using it for the very first time,” he said.
“I am appealing to everyone to be careful and to just do the right thing while we are using these roadways… You know Spur Tree Hill has a tendency to create some problems from time to time, and the problem is that it creates a backlog for people who are coming to work who are trapped for hours trying to get into Mandeville,” he said.
He also called on the police to increase their presence on the roadway.
“We are asking that police do even periodic spot checks along this roadway to ensure that we are using the roadway carefully. There is a tendency for people just to overtake and just to speed along that piece of roadway, so I am appealing, please, this year we want to be free from most motor vehicle accidents in terms of fatality, because one life is too much, especially in these times,” he said.
The Spur Tree main road — a hotspot for motor vehicle crashes — links Mandeville and its environs to St Elizabeth and points west. Heavily laden, slow-moving trucks often hinder traffic on the steep, difficult hill, and there have been a number of fatal crashes involving trucks down the years.
In a February 3, 2022 Observer story, headlined ‘Defective, overweight vehicles and inexperienced drivers to blame for Spur Tree crashes’ Dr Lucien Jones, vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council, and a senior police officer, who asked not to be named, said drivers need training in how to manoeuvre the steep hill.
“Training is a central part of it in terms of getting your general licence or your trailer licence,” Dr Jones said at that time.
He said based on crash reports from the police, some drivers involved in collisions on the Spur Tree Hill main road do not engage the low gear early enough to slow the vehicle.
“[They] depend rather on brakes, which can fail you, especially with very heavy vehicles, and turning around those curves often leads to the kind of news reports that we get about crashes, both non-fatal and fatal,” he said.
“The number one warning to the drivers is to be extremely careful when they are going down that road and also for those who are coming up the road, because you never can tell what may happen around those curves,” he added.
The senior police officer said overladen trucks are mainly to blame.
“As you start descending the hill the first sign says engage low gear, but one of the problems is it doesn’t matter the gear you engage in, if you are overloaded the vehicle still a go run faster than the norm,” he said.
Additionally, he said coming up the Winston Jones Highway from the east heading west puts a lot of pressure on the vehicles.
“It a go run hotter than normal, because the hill is long, all the way up until you reach Hatfield. [When] it is time to descend the hill, that vehicle is hot already. Whether you engage low gear or you [are] using your brake just the same, it is not holding as when it was cool,” he explained.
“If your vehicle is running too fast, you can’t change gear in the middle of the hill. It is a combination of things that cause accidents,” he added.
Experienced truckers have long had the habit of ‘chilling out’ by parking outside Mandeville after completing the steep Winston Jones Highway before descending Spur Tree Hill.
“Driving a truck around Kingston to deliver [goods] is different from going downhill. Different ball game,” said the police source.
