M6 road workers tried to help crash victims, trial hears
Road workers ran to help the victims of a night-time collision on the M6 when sparks from the impact ‘lit up the motorway like daylight’, a court heard.
Dean Walsh was picking up cones near Junction 14, for Stafford, when a lorry collided with a Nissan Micra in the southbound middle lane, crushing the back of the car in the early hours of May 24 last year.
Five fruit-pickers on their way to work at a Stafford farm died at the scene and a sixth suffered serious injuries.
It is alleged that dangerous driving by lorry driver Zbigniew Grzabel, from Tipton, was the cause.
Mr Walsh, working a night shift with two others for the traffic management firm Tarmac, was at the wheel of a company van when a colleague, anticipating the crash, shouted “He’s going to hit him.”
The three hurried to the crash site about half a mile in front of them and threw sandbags from the van around the Micra which had hit the central reservation before coming to a stop in lane two.
Giving evidence at Stafford Crown Court, Mr Walsh, who alerted the emergency services, said: “The motorway lit up with sparks – it was like daylight.”
He described the crash as more ‘like a push’ than a collision, with no sudden braking. “We tried to open a window but we couldn’t. It was a mess,” he told the jury.
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The victims were 45-year-old driver Marius Zevian and four back-seat passengers – Mr Zevian’s wife Cucoana Zevian, 49, Gheorghita Radu, 56, Nicoleta-Marinela Florea, 42, and 34-year-old Marcela Sandu, all Romanians living in Stoke-on-Trent. Mrs Sandu’s husband, Aurel Sandu, 37, in the passenger seat, survived.
Another lorry driver Thomas Appleton, on his way to Stafford, saw the Micra three times shortly before the crash, initially on the hard shoulder with its hazard lights showing, then when it overtook him three or four miles later and finally, after a further three or four miles, again stationary on the hard shoulder with its hazards on.
He said he recognised the car because of its distinctive pink rear lights.
In cross-examination by Mr Adam Wiseman, QC, defending, Mr Appleton said he thought it was 'odd' that the car had not driven to the nearby Stafford Services 'where it would have been safer'.
It is alleged that the Micra suddenly lost speed, not caused by braking, just before the collision.
The 62-year-old defendant, who was unhurt, had driven from Huddersfield and was headed for Oldbury when the crash happened.
Grzabel, of Glebefields Road, denies five counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. The trial continues.
