Lucky escape

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Truck driver recovering after 30m fall
Email Print Normal font Large font February 12, 2007 - 7:04PM

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AdvertisementA truck driver escaped with minor injuries after his semi-trailer plunged 30 metres down an embankment beside the F3 Freeway north of Sydney.

The pantech semi-trailer was travelling south on the F3 when it collided with a sedan travelling in the same direction near the Mooney Mooney Bridge about 11am (AEDT), police said.

The impact sent the large semi careering through a guard rail and down the embankment where it came to rest in a large canopy of gum trees five metres from the edge of an 80-metre cliff.

Ambulance officers took about an hour to rescue the man from the wrecked cabin, a witness to the accident said.

NSW Ambulance spokesman Neil Hargraves said the vehicle was extensively damaged in the plunge down the embankment.

"We stretchered him out as a precaution," Mr Hargraves said.

It appeared the 54-year-old man had suffered minor facial injuries and soreness to his shoulder and chest, he said.

"He's a lucky man," Mr Hargraves said.

He was taken to Gosford Hospital for treatment.

A 30-year-old Sydney woman who was driving the sedan and her two female passengers were uninjured.

Two of three southbound freeway lanes were blocked as a result of the accident and traffic was banked up for about 1km in wet conditions, a police spokeswoman said.

A Seven Network camera assistant, Gary Dring, who was at the scene of the accident, said he was amazed the man had survived.

"The driver miraculously came out with a broken nose," Mr Dring told Macquarie Radio.

"It's incredible, the cab is just unrecognisable.

"I just don't know how he survived. If the truck went another five more metres he would have gone off another, 80-metre cliff, so he was really lucky to survive."

A Gosford Hospital spokeswoman said the man was still being assessed but was in a stable condition.

© 2007 AAP