10-4 Magazine May 2023

Trucker Talk: By John & Kim Jaikes Reading trucking magazines wide eyed as a child, Matt Gantry was certain that he wanted to drive a truck one day. Matt lives in England and has always thought that the Norwegian trucks were much more impressive than the ones in his home country. He realized his dream of driving a truck when he was 22, and it was only one month later that his dream turned into a nightmare – and nearly killed him. Having a terrible accident, his twenty six ton lorrie (truck), a Mercedes Axor, crashed into a tree, forever changing his life. One of the first vehicles on the scene was a fire engine carrying four part time firefighters. This is the least amount of firefighters allowed on a truck dispatched from the station. Had they not met that number they wouldn’t have got to Matt as quickly as they did. One of the risks for the firefighters when turning out at local scene is that you might know the person involved, and the crew immediately realized they knew Matt from the village. One of the firefighters said, “It was one of the most technically challenging incidents I’ve been to in 20 years on the job.” It was a very complex rescue operation which involved winching the huge vehicle free of the tree so the paramedics and doctors, who worked in the dangerous conditions, could get Matt out. The rescue crew had up to forty five emergency service personnel, four of whom Matt knew personally. After three hours, during which he had his heart restarted by the ambulance personnel at the scene, he was finally extracted from the wreckage and flown by air ambulance to the hospital where he underwent a five and a half hour brain surgery. He was in an induced coma for a month, as his broken bones and a blood clot on his brain could begin to heal. At the time of the accident, he had a chest infection, and his body temperature got dangerously high. Matt’s red and white blood cell count was at near fatal levels. The doctors didn’t think he would make it through the first night, but he did. After 101 days in the hospital, he was discharged in a wheelchair. The next 18 months were filled with outpatient physiotherapy sessions so he could learn to walk again. He progressed from a wheelchair to a Zimmer frame, to crutches, then a walking stick, and finally, to walking very gingerly on his own. Police thoroughly investigated the crash and found no fault with the truck, Matt’s driving, or his hours. But he was to blame, because he hit the oak tree. Eventually they found the reason to be a rare condition (not known until after the accident) called Cough Syncope. This is a well-recognized syndrome in which loss of consciousness usually occurs immediately after a violent cough or episode of violent coughing lasting for a prolonged period of time. In my research about this rare condition, I found that if you suffer from syncopal episodes to the extent that you are limited in your ability to perform daily tasks or work, you may quality for disability benefits here in the United States. Although it’s rare and infrequent, cough syncope can be a serious and potentially life-threatening complication of chronic cough, which can have a major impact on sufferers, and treatment should be focused on the underlying cause or causes. 76 10-4 Magazine / May 2023 TRUCKER TURNED WRITER