By Jed Lanyon
A Lyndhurst truck driver has recounted the moment he helped his mate just seconds before his truck carrying hay bales burst into flames in Healesville.
Fred Reid had just finished delivering a load in Healesville when he got the call for help from David Ayres on his CB radio.
Mr Ayres had been driving his Kenworth truck, transporting two trailers loaded with hay along the Maroondah Highway when he thought he may have a flat tyre about 7.30am on 20 September.
He pulled into a BP and put the callout for help on his radio for anyone in the area.
“He called up and asked if I could sneak around him to see what the trouble was,” Mr Reid recalled.
Mr Reid said Mr Ayres was in “all sorts of bother” with smoke coming out the middle of the B-double.
“Being a load of hay, in town and next to a petrol station, I suggested let’s get it out of town before you lose the whole truck,” Mr Reid said.
Mr Ayres then drove the truck about 1.5 km out of Healesville, just past Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road where he and Mr Reid separated the two trailers and his prime mover to prevent the fire from spreading.
“Literally seconds after we got the prime mover out from under the trailer, it just burst into flames,” Mr Reid said.
“We were standing probably 30 metres away and the heat was burning us; that’s how hot it was.”
Without his assistance, Mr Reid believes Mr Ayres may have been left in a situation where his truck would have ignited in town, leaving him with no choice but to run for his own safety.
“Poor fella, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone what happened to him.
“He’s a good young kid, he was pretty switched on and acted pretty fast. If he hadn’t have made that call, we couldn’t have worked together to do what we did. “Afterwards he told me, ‘I couldn’t have done it without you, I owe you a beer’.
“Things could have been a lot worse and we were very lucky to have the outcome we had.”
Senior Constable Tom Juric of the Yarra Ranges Highway Patrol praised the actions of the quick-thinking drivers.
He said the fire was caused from friction through an upturned mudflap against the truck’s tyres.
The incident caused the Maroondah Highway to be blocked for several hours with fire crews on scene for five hours. A front end loader from VicRoads was also needed to push the hay off the trailers.
