A truck has crashed into a bridge, causing it to collapse and killing a passenger inside the vehicle in the New South Wales central-west.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emergency services were called to Inch Street, Lithgow at 8:55am on Thursday after a cherry picker vehicle hit a disused rail overpass bridge.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old male driver managed to free himself, but a 34-year-old man in the passenger seat was trapped and was found dead.<\/p>\n
The driver was treated for minor injuries at the scene before being taken to Lithgow Hospital. \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Emergency services at the scene of a bridge collapse in Lithgow where a Sydney Trains employee was killed. (ABC News: Victoria Pengilley)<\/p>\n
New South Wales Police Superintendent John Walke said it was a “dangerous scene” for first responders.<\/p>\n
“The scene presented some complexities for responding emergency services \u2026 It took some time to get to the passenger,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Following that he was accessed at the scene and found to be deceased.<\/p>\n
“We have commenced a recovery operation and the operation is still ongoing due to the complexities of the bridge.”<\/p>\n
Road closed<\/p>\n
Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said both men were locals and were working for the organisation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“They were on duty … no doubt inspecting the rail corridor given the location of the accident,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Longland said the road was expected to remain closed for some time as attempts were made to remove the truck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Crews work to lift a bridge that collapsed in Lithgow. (ABC News: Victoria Pengilley)<\/p>\n
“We have got heavy machinery on site at the moment, so we will be doing everything we can to minimise inconvenience for locals that need access to the area,” he said.<\/p>\n
Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray said the incident had “deeply shaken shaken the entire rail workforce and the broader transport community”.<\/p>\n
He said SafeWork NSW was at the scene and would investigate the incident.<\/p>\n
In a post on social media, the Lithgow City Council said it did not have an indication of when access to the road would be restored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A truck has crashed into a bridge, causing it to collapse and killing a passenger inside the vehicle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[155464,43,44,1158,155465,41,39,42,40,14586],"class_list":{"0":"post-266027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-bridge-collapse","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-police","12":"tag-road-closure","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-truck-crash"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}