A twenty-five-year-old lorry driver endured a harrowing ordeal early Thursday morning when his heavy vehicle overturned along the Dhaka-Chittagong highway in Feni’s Fazilpur area. Trapped inside the mangled cabin for nearly four hours beneath a massive cargo of scrap metal, Mohammad Shamim was finally pulled out alive by dedicated fire service personnel following a complex rescue operation.
The incident unfolded in the pre-dawn hours near the Zenith petrol pump adjacent to Khaiyara in Fazilpur. According to local law enforcement and eyewitness accounts, the covered van was transporting roughly twenty-one tonnes of scrap iron and industrial materials belonging to Rahim Industries. Having departed from the bustling port city of Chittagong, the heavy goods vehicle was heading towards Kanchpur in Dhaka before disaster struck.
Preliminary investigations indicate that a speeding passenger coach abruptly swerved in front of the lorry, forcing the driver to take evasive action. Caught off guard by the sudden maneuver, Shamim lost control of the steering wheel, causing the heavily laden vehicle to veer off the tarmac and capsize violently onto the roadside. While the driver’s assistant managed to scramble out of the wreckage with minor injuries, Shamim remained pinned inside the crushed driver’s compartment as structural metal and heavy freight compressed the cabin space.
Routine highway patrols proved crucial when a mobile team from the local police station noticed the overturned transport vehicle during their early morning rounds. Approaching the wreckage to investigate, officers heard faint cries for help emanating from deep within the twisted chassis. Recognizing the critical nature of the situation, the patrol unit immediately alerted the local fire brigade headquarters.
A specialized rescue unit spearheaded by Feni Sadar Fire Service Deputy Assistant Director Md Abdullah Harun Pasha rushed to the scene without delay. Rescuers faced an immense challenge due to the sheer weight of the twenty-one tonnes of iron cargo pressing down on the vehicle frame, which severely restricted access to the trapped driver. Utilizing specialized hydraulic cutting gear and stabilization equipment, emergency crews worked meticulously for four grueling hours to peel away the deformed steel.
By nine o’clock in the morning, emergency workers successfully liberated Shamim from the wreckage. Originally hailing from Idris Akon’s household in Dashmina upazila of Patuakhali district, the exhausted survivor was promptly transferred to a nearby medical facility for urgent trauma care. Fazilpur Highway Police Sub-Inspector M. A. Imran Hossain confirmed that prompt inter-agency communication between traffic patrols and rescue services averted a potential tragedy, while traffic along the vital national corridor was restored to normalcy shortly after the crippled vehicle was cleared from the road shoulder.
