Truck driver's lucky escape

A woman was cut from her car after colliding with a logging truck near Ngaruawahia. Picture / Christine Cornege

Truck driver Shane Runga was on his way to pick up his last load of the day when he says he came across a car driving towards him on his side of the road.

"I just said 'shit, no, no!' and then bang!"

Mr Runga, 33, of Tokoroa, was southbound on Waingaro Rd about 3km southwest of Ngaruawahia when he said he saw a 2005 Nissan March, driven by a woman, moving towards him as he rounded a bend.

The front right side of the woman's vehicle collided with the front left of his unladen logging truck yesterday morning.

The impact of the collision spun her vehicle around 360 degrees before it came to rest in a fence on the side of the road. It was Mr Runga's first accident in four years of driving trucks.

"If it was a head-on collision it would have been different," said Mr Runga. "It could have been a lot worse."

Mr Runga said he jumped out of his truck and raced to the woman's car, which was smoking.

"She was in pain and the car was smoking so I ripped the battery out and got the fire extinguisher out of my truck," he said.

"Some guy in a car then came by and, luckily, he had a first aid kit - he was awesome."

Waikato District Fire Commander Roy Breeze said the woman was trapped in her car, which he described as a complete write-off, for about 40 minutes as fire crews from Ngaruawahia and Hamilton used cutting equipment to free her.

She was taken to Waikato Hospital with what are believed to be moderate injuries to her back, right hip and arms.