Hero trucker out of work
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• A Durham owner-driver claims his contract has been ended only days after he was hailed as a hero for steering a runaway truck to safety.
George Gardner, 43, of Chester-le-Street was driving a 30-tonne cement mixer in Scotswood, Newcastle when the brakes failed, threatening to send the truck and the five-gallon ban-el of hydrochloric acid it was carrying into a row of terraced houses. Gardner steered the mixer to the bottom of the street, jumping clear only sec
onds before the truck fell 30 feet on to a road below.
Gardner, who had minor injuries, was praised by local residents, but is now out of a job. He says that Washingtonbased Tarmac Topmix has refused to give him another vehicle, ending a two-year contract which should have run until October 1996.
But Tarmac Topmix claims Gardner is fully self-employed and had no contract with the company. "There simply isn't a vehicle for him to drive," it says.