Cape Town -
A road construction worker was killed and eight of his colleagues seriously injured when a car rammed into a stationary truck on the N1 on Thursday.
The crash happened near Century City after lunchtime on Thursday. The injured were taken to hospitals around the city with suspected back and neck injuries.
Workers at the scene said the car seemed to come out of nowhere and “the next thing bodies were sprawled across the road”.
ER24’s Andre Visser said the events leading up to the accident were unclear, but that a Hyundai Elantra hit a stationary construction truck which was loaded with steel barriers.
“A flatbed construction truck with a load of steel Armco barriers was stationary in the right side emergency lane of the highway.
“A Hyundai [car] then [hit] the rear of the… construction vehicle and a number of workers were [thrown] off the truck…” Visser said.
Multiple fire and rescue personnel and paramedics and traffic officers were on the scene within minutes to tend to the injured and divert traffic.
Visser said one of the workers had been found nearly 30m from where the crash occurred, on the outbound side of the highway.
“The worker, believed to be aged in his 50s, had sustained fatal injuries and was later declared dead at the scene,” he said.
The passenger in the Hyundai had suspected back and neck injuries.
“Paramedics and rescue personnel extricated a woman from the Hyundai before administering advanced life support treatment…” Visser said.
She was taken to hospital.
Civils 2000 site managers were on the scene to asses the damage.
The company’s Bruwer Dirk said they had about 13 men working on the site at the time of the accident.
Traffic was affected on both sides of the highway.
The police are investigating the accident.
Cape Argus