Waiter in lorry crash drama
A hotel waiter had a lucky escape last week when a 40-tonne lorry ran out of control down a hill and smashed into a staff cottage while he was asleep.
Shaun Thompson scrambled unscathed from the ruins in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, after the lorry carrying china clay careered down a steep hill, crashed into the front of the cottage and overturned, killing its German driver.
The noise was heard by his employer, hotelier Richard Hanson of the nearby Restormel Lodge hotel, who ran to the scene and shouted to 22-year-old Thompson to get out of the building before the rest of it collapsed. No other staff were in the cottage at the time.
Sheila Hanson, who has run the hotel with her husband for 30 years, said: "It was only when we went back that we realised how lucky he had been. The floor of the room in which he was sleeping has since collapsed."
