Truckie to meet cyclist on road to recovery

NICE ROAD TRUCKIE: Baz King is not the kind of bloke who likes a fuss so he did not make a big deal out of his part in saving the life of a seriously ill cyclist. PHOTO/JOHN STONE

Cambridge man Greg Gascoigne will get to buy a beer for the Whangarei logging truck driver who helped him during the Tour of Northland cycle race.

The man who stopped his big rig to help the cyclist taken ill on the Opouteke Mangakahia road's section of the 92km first stage of the event was Stokes Transport driver Baz King.

Still recuperating a few weeks after the dramatic early finish to his Northland Tour, Mr Gascoigne - who friends call Gazza - contact the Northern Advocate to say he wanted to shake the hand of the driver who got emergency services to him. All he knew was the chap drove a red truck.

The Advocate can report that Gazza and Bazza are indeed likely to meet again, next time in more pleasant circumstances.

The Whangarei-based driver had come across Mr Gascoigne lying on the roadside with four of five people trying to help him. Mr King had passed a couple of other trucks going in the opposite direction only minutes before.

"I literally came around a corner and saw this bloke down on the ground. The first thing I thought was one of our guys had bowled him for a six," he said.

"During that race, the road is absolute bedlam and that's a mongrel of a road at the best of times - there's no room, patchy cellphone coverage. Anything could happen. It was pretty obvious this guy was sick, though. At first I thought it was dehydration."

But Mr Gascoigne had had a stroke and his condition was rapidly deteriorating.

One of his fellow cyclists had managed to call for help on a mobile phone in one of Northland's notorious "black spots", but didn't know exactly where they were. Mr King called his boss Basil Richards on the his truck's Fleetlink radio to pass the GPS co-ordinates on to St John Ambulance. Then he went on his way.

"There wasn't much point in me hanging around. Help was on its way and the others cyclists were there with him," he said.

He had grabbed his first-aid kit as he jumped out of his cab. Although all the company's drivers had done first aid courses, and Mr King has been a professional driver for much of his working life, he said opening the kit was a first.

Stokes Transport manager Mr Richards was pleased his drivers were watching out for the public as the industry often had a bad rap because of the number of associated road incidents.