A toll booth worker air-lifted to hospital in Halifax following a collision at the Cobequid Pass is a Bass River resident and well-known figure in Truro sports circles.
Commissionaire Stuart (Stu) Mills was collecting tolls at the Pass shortly after 11 a.m. Monday when a five-tonne truck slammed into the booth he was working in.
Although his identity has not officially been released, the Truro Daily News has learned he is Mills, who serves as vice-president of Truro Minor Lacrosse.
He was also nominated in February for a Truro Sport Heritage Society award.
Two other people, including the truck driver and an on-site construction worker, were transported by ambulance to Colchester Regional Hospital in Truro with non-life-threatening injuries.
A witness at the scene said the truck took out half a dozen concrete traffic barriers before shearing off the side of the building attached to the booth.
Steve Sharratt, an off-duty reporter with the Charlottetown Guardian, said the commissionaire was trapped for about 40 minutes until he was extracted by emergency crews and flown off in the Medi-Vac helicopter.
Standing beside the gruesome looking aftermath of twisted metal and shattered concrete, investigating RCMP officer Sharon Sisson said the commissionaire “was talking when he left the scene” and things could easily have been much worse for a lot more people.
The identity of the truck driver was unavailable by press time, but lettering on the side of the truck show it as being from Powa Express Trucking of Shellville, Ga.
Doreen Pippy, a passenger in the car that was stopped in the toll booth when the truck came crashing in, said she spoke with the driver after the incident and although he offered his apologies, he could not explain what happened.
Pippy told CTV News she believed the driver had fallen asleep.
Sisson said she was waiting to speak with the truck driver for his version of events.
