“If it had been five minutes later, I would have been in it.”
Port Alfred resident Sherrie Bradfield was calm when she told Talk of the Town about missing by minutes what could have been a far more serious incident on the R72. But that was only because she’d taken medication to manage the distress of seeing “all I own” flipped over like a tin can and crushed before her eyes early Monday November 20.
The queues of vehicles from the Nico Malan Bridge westwards, and diverted through the East Bank streets from the East London side persisted for most of the morning. Ndlambe’s Traffic Department was on site at intersections to divert traffic through the CBD.
Around 10.30am, a full deployment of heavy duty towing vehicles hooked separately on to the horse and trailer and cargo and began to shift them off the busy main road.
“I set my alarm for 6.30am,” said Bradfield, who works in the CBD. “There was going to be loadshedding at 7am and the door of the garage I’ve been using doesn’t have a backup battery so I had to take my car out before then.
“Where I’d had my car parked before, it was broken into three weeks ago. So I was really grateful when one of my neighbours said I could use that garage.”
After leaving her Citroen C3 parked on the driveway, Bradfield went back inside for a cup of coffee ahead of a quick trip to the beach before work.
“Then we heard this really loud noise and we reckoned it was a broken truck coming down the hill. We couldn’t really see anything though.”
Bradfield and her son ran back inside to get the gate key and while they were inside, they heard a terrible crash. What they saw when they returned was a terrible shock.
“Right now, I’m numb,” Bradfield said, speaking a few hours after the incident. “To see the only thing I own upside down and crushed. The worst is it’s not insured,” she said. “I’m a single mom with three kids and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The truck belongs to a private operator subcontracted by a Gqeberha based transport company, who referred Talk of the Town to the owner for comment. TOTT had been unable to reach the owner at the number given by the time of publishing. However, a source near the scene said they believed a broken prop shaft had caused the truck to lose control.
