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p icture the scene. You're in a truck, parked outside a

31st August 1995, Page 32
31st August 1995
Page 32
Page 33
Page 34
Page 32, 31st August 1995 — p icture the scene. You're in a truck, parked outside a
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords : Truck Driver, Grantham

busy motorway service station, taking a well-earned break from the rigours of the road.

Suddenly there is an explosion so loud it makes your bones shake and your ears ring with pain. Most of the building and the occupants have gone, disappeared in a thick cloud of dust and rubble, and a raging wall of fire is seconds away from the fuel tanks on the petrol forecourt. What do you do?

For Alan Sharpe, a 48-year-old driver from Nottingham faced with just such a nightmare on 18 June this year, such a question is beyond comprehension.

Without thinking, he risked his life to rescue three survivors when a massive gas explosion ripped through a Belgian motorway service station, killing 16 people. It was an act of heroism which, overnight, catapulted him to international celebrity status.

Thanked personally by King Albert of Belgium, and later invited to Buckingham Palace to meet Prince Charles, Alan Sharpe did more for the often tainted image of British truck drivers in a few short minutes than an army of public relations consultants could have achieved in a lifetime. But research reveals his was simply the latest in a series of extraordinarily courageous acts by HGV drivers in the course of their duties. While the stereotypical trucker is seen as a greasyhaired, overweight slob, who drives with a chip butty in one hand, a Capstan Full Strength fag in the other and has nothing but contempt for car drivers, the truth is quite different.

Tales abound of drivers who abandoned all thoughts of self-preservation for the sake of helping others in danger. Both in the UK and overseas, their mettle is now recognised through the industry's own annual awards.

Sharpe's story shows why such tributes are richly deserved. "1 had been in the restaurant, talking to the owner, who I know well," he says. 'Then she left to go somewhere and a family came in, a couple with kids. I went back to the truck to read and had been there about an hour when there was this vast explosion—the place just disappeared.

"I just got out and ran over straight away," he recalls. "I could hear people screaming and shouting for help. I got the first woman away from the building and then the second. After I rescued the man, a German lorry driver, I wanted to go back in for the children but then the whole place just went up. The screams of those children is something I will never forget. I tried to help them but I just couldn't do any more." He was aided by another driver, 52-year-old John Piff from Swindon in Wiltshire. Piff helped Sharpe pull the survivors out and was also highly praised by the Belgian authorities. And you don't have to look far for other examples of drivers' quick thinking and downright heroism.

In March last year, 57-year-old driver Leslie Dawe was directing his 24-tonne truck down a steep hill in Wadebridge in Cornwall when the brakes failed.

Dawe tried changing down the gears but the truck—loaded with topsoil—continued to gather speed as it hurtled down the hill towards a school and the town centre. In desperation, and with little regard for his own 1110.

y, 'awes eerec o le road, over a verge d into a stone wall. iraculously, he was hurt.

The cab was a write. "I didn't think I ould walk away from • When! hit the wall I An't know what was ing to happen—all I anted to do was stop e truck," says Dawe. me cars had passed e with mums taking eir children to school min the road that as heading straight r. I had to make a cision quick and it asn't until about a iarter of an hour later at I started to shake." That feat earned awe the Road ulage Association surance Services 'ver of the Year award for 1994.

The first winner, in 1993, was another ottinghamshire driver, Dennis Buck from lston. His skill behind the wheel prevented a adly accident on the Al at Stibbington in bruary 1993.

A packed school bus was attempting to oss the 70mph dual-carriageway and was out to pull out into the path of Buck's nker. With seconds to spare Buck swerved s tanker through the gap in the central resertion to the opposite carriageway without 'tting anything and avoiding a bloodbath. Other examples of valiant acts by truck drirs show many also possess impressive lead-ship skills.

Paul Grantham, then transport manager r Sheffield-based haulier Hambleton Bard ternational, found himself stranded with 0 other people on 25 January this year after ee feet of snow blocked the A616 in South rkshire.

Over the next 24 hours Grantham led a mil-y-style rescue operation which ensured the ck and vulnerable were led to safety and randed motorists were able to share the

heated cabs of the 45 other trucks caught in the logjam. After helping a diabetic sufferer in need of insulin, finding shelter for a coachIoad of children and arranging for women to stay at a nearby pub, Grantham even commandeered a four-wheel-drive police patrol car to rescue a woman with a baby. "It was minus 10°C and the wind was fierce. Somebody had to take a decision and I just took the front," Grantham says. In truth, truck drivers' acts of courage are probably much more to do with their personality than their profession, But many are ex-servicemen and have been hardened to horror by their military experiences. Sharpe, for example, is convinced his nine years as a paratrooper explained his rapid response in the face of extreme danger. "I've served in Borneo, Aden and Northern Ireland and I've seen a lot of blood and shit," he says. "Poor John Piff, the first thing he came across was a bloke with no head."

Grantham has lasting memories of the camaraderie and kinship between the stranded truckers, "You would not believe the spirit—it was like a party atmosphere," he recalls.

But there is a darker side to being a hero. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is common once the media bandwagon has stopped rolling Three weeks after the Belgian explosion, on the eve of his first return drive to Belgium, Sharpe broke down during an interview with CM as he recalled the screams of the children who died in the fire. And Piff, who lives and works in Holland, had been forced to return home to the UK after seeing a stress counsellor.

Yet Sharpe sees his trauma as a small price to pay for three lives. He concludes: "The biggest reward! have ever had in my life was to go back and see those people recovered,"

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