A victim's tale
Page 62
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• Owner-driver John Ward from Co Durham got caught up in the Spanish blockade—and he has the scars to prove it.
Ward spent two days in hospital in Burgos where he had 12 stitches in his face and treatment for cuts on his arms and internal injuries after a boulder was dropped on to the motorway in front of his truck.
He was working his regular route for Dumfries-based Currie Group when the attack happened. He and Curries driver John Kitchen had made a break for it from an industrial estate where they had been held hostage by strikers.
"We'd got about 101m from our destination and were chatting on the CB radio," says Ward. "John said he saw something thrown off the bridge up ahead so I switched on the spotlight to see what it was. The next thing I knew I woke up in Burgos hospital."
The giant rock smashed through the front of the cab and turned the truck over, trapping John for two hours and writing off his year-old unit.
After a decade of continental driving, he was shocked at the behaviour of the Spanish strikers: "They have caused a hell of a lot of bad feeling," he says.