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East Lothian man saw lorry driver 'crawl through windscreen' to flee rail crash

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorJacob Farr
Published date24 June 2022
Publication titleEdinburghLive (Scotland)
James Murden, 37, from Prestonpans, was travelling towards Wallyford when he heard a loud bang and saw a cloud of dust in the air

He says that he was approaching the roundabout from Prestonpans and immediately pulled over at the Suzuki garage to call 999 at around 1.30pm on Thursday.

James said he saw what "looked like the front end of the truck in the air" and rushed to the scene after he had alerted the emergency services.

He added that several people had run over to the wall the truck had crashed through before plummeting onto the rails.

He watched as the driver kicked his way through the windscreen in order to escape the crumbled wreckage of his cabin strewn across the track.

The Shell Dreghorn site manager said: "I was approaching the roundabout from Prestonpans, heading for Wallyford.

"I heard a huge bang and saw a cloud of smoke in the direction of Musselburgh.

"It looked like the front end of the truck was in the air but this was just from a glance as I was still driving.

"I pulled up in front of the Suzuki garage and called 999. After eight years working in a petrol station, it is wired into us to respond quickly.

"A few minutes later I ran over to the fence to see if the driver was ok, and saw him kick his way through the windscreen and crawl out.

"There was a crowd of people by the hole in the wall, and a couple of guys climbed down to help him get up.

"I'm just glad he's ok and no one else was hurt."

Network Rail revealed that the East Coast Mainline from Edinburgh to Berwick-Upon-Tweed would remain closed overnight as they scrambled to remove the lorry and repair the damage caused by the terrifying incident.

But rail bosses updated passengers on Friday morning with the line expected to reopen "imminently" as specialist workers launched a massive salvage operation to move the truck and repair damage.

Network Rail tweeted: "Good progress on repairs overnight, but unfortunately the East Coast Mainline...

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