Backpacker Fights for Life After Truck Roll in NT
Friday May 1, 2009
A German backpacker was fighting for her life on Tuesday night after a truck she and her friend was in rolled in the Northern Territory.
The 20-year-old woman and her friend were hitch-hiking and were in the truck's sleeping cabin when it crashed.
The backpacker was then trapped inside the wreckage for five hours while rescuers used two cranes to lift the mangled wreck until she was free.
She was then flown to Royal Darwin Hospital by RAAF helicopter where she remains in a serious condition in intensive care.
Her friend - also a 20-year-old German woman who was sitting in the front passenger seat - suffered a suspected broken leg and burns from hot oil. She was recovering at Katherine hospital yesterday.
Allegedly the 30-year-old truck driver, who sustained minor injuries, was under the influence of alcohol and was not wearing his seat belt. Police did not say what his blood alcohol level was.
The accident occurred on the Victoria Highway near Coolibah Station, about 160km west of Katherine about 3pm on Monday.
Police said the driver appeared to have lost control of the truck when he was trying to make a turn on to the highway from a dirt road.
Timber Creek police station officer-in-charge Brevet Sergeant Michael Lunney told the Northern Territory News that: "It is simply unbelievable that someone driving a heavily loaded road train would drive without a seat belt, and allow anyone else in the vehicle to do the same."
"It is incredible that this same person would be driving such a vehicle after having been drinking."
The driver was arrested yesterday, charged and will appear in court.
