A shocked taxi driver told last night how she cradled a road crash victim in her arms after the truck he was travelling in was smashed into head-on by another vehicle.

Claudine Burgess wiped away tears as she described the accident, involving four vehicles, on North Shore Road, Hamilton Parish, yesterday afternoon.

It took firefighters almost an hour-and-a-half to free one driver from his truck. The man was taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital. Last night it was believed all those who were injured were in a stable, non life-threatening condition in hospital.

Three other casualties were also taken to hospital, including a motorcyclist who became pinned underneath the wheels of a truck.

The accident happened when the driver of a blue open-backed truck, travelling west, stopped to let a postman turn out of Idlewood Drive on his motorcycle onto North Shore Road.

A yellow flatbed truck crashed into the back of the blue truck, forcing it across the road and into the path of a white truck travelling east. The vehicles collided and a motorcyclist travelling behind the white truck also crashed and became trapped under the wheels of the white vehicle.

Mrs. Burgess, from Hamilton Parish, heard the collisions from her taxi and rushed to help the men in the white truck. She told : ?I heard two bangs and then I turned round and saw it and tried to dial 911.

?I knew it was serious. I was trying to dial 911 but the line was busy. I ran over to the white truck and saw one of the men was unconscious. I thought he was dead.

?I kept telling both of them to take deep breaths and relax. The driver was crying, saying he doesn?t have any feeling in his toes.

?He asked for a phone and he called his dad and said they?d been in an accident. He said ?Dad, I love you?.?

She said the passenger ? who she was told was called Alan ? was unconscious and bleeding from his eye.

?I kept hugging Alan and talking to him.? she said. ?A lady came by and cut up some cloth. An off-duty Police officer tied it around his eye.

?The ambulance drivers came then and attended to both of them. I kept calling and talking to Alan and I said a prayer. I am still upset.?

The postman, Rodney Caines, 50, said he was stunned when the yellow truck went into the vehicle in front.

?I was stopped at the stop sign. I was sitting right there and the guy in the blue truck was letting me come out. I never got chance to move, it happened so fast.

?I had to move out of the path of the yellow truck that was coming towards me. It all happened very quickly. It was frightening. I could see that the guy in the white truck got hurt.?

Two fire engines and two ambulances attended the scene and the road was closed for several hours.

The accident happened close to the Copifax office supplies store on North Shore Road. Worker Andrea Nisbett, 19, said: ?There was a big bang. We called the Fire Service.

?We could see the guy was pinned in the white truck so he couldn?t move. Some people took a couple of sheets and put them over him.?

Police spokesman Dwayne Caines said: ?A postal carrier was stopped in the area of Idlewood Drive. He was stopped at the stop sign.

?A courteous truck driver had stopped to allow him to go out. An Island construction truck didn?t see, or could not brake in time, and collided with the blue truck, which was travelling west.

?This resulted in the blue truck being pushed to the opposite side of the street and colliding with a white truck heading east. When the white truck heading east stopped it resulted in a gentleman on an auxiliary cycle being forced to stop as well and being pinned underneath the white truck.?

He said the injured motorcyclist was taken to hospital with head injuries. The passenger helped by Mrs. Burgess was also taken to hospital, as was the passenger in the blue truck. Their injuries were not thought to be life threatening.

The crash comes less than a week after Alvin Flood became the Island?s second official road fatality of the year. He was killed when his bike collided with a truck last Saturday, also on North Shore Road in Hamilton Parish.

Anyone with information about yesterday?s accident should call Police on 295-0011.