A truck driver was killed shortly after his truck hit the pedestrian bridge that spans Highway 4 near Givat Shmuel in Bnei Brak on Monday evening. A policeman who tried to rescue him immediately after the crash was injured during his attempt to save them.
United Hatzolah volunteers and other rescue personnel raced to the scene near the Ramat Elchanan neighborhood after receiving reports the well-known pedestrian bridge next to the Coca Cola factory had collapsed.
The bridge dropped right on top of the truck after it struck it as it tried to pass beneath, trapping the driver. The crane on the truck was not fully closed, and as the truck passed underneath, the crane banged into the bridge, pushed the back of the truck down and then back up again and knocked the bridge down.
Rescue personnel originally thought there were two people trapped in the truck and then thought both had died, but police reported after midnight, that they were finally able to retrieve the driver’s body from the truck, and he was the only one inside.
Highway 4 was closed in both directions.
Medics initially said the trapped truck driver was conscious, according to United Hatzolah spokesperson Raphael Poch, “but his exact medical condition and status” was unknown.
IDF Rescue and Home Front Command units arrived at the scene within minutes. A crane was summoned to lift the chunks of the concrete bridge, which weighs dozens of tons, off the truck.
