Rodney Stevens

A truck driver was lucky to escape with only minor injuries after the B-Double he was driving crashed off the M1 motorway at Gulmarrad and careered into a gully on Tuesday, August 13.

Emergency services responded to reports that a truck had crashed down an embankment off the Motorway, near McIntyres Lane just before 2pm last Tuesday.

Fire and Rescue NSW, NSW Police, NSW Rural Fire Service units, NSW Ambulance paramedics, and State Emergency Service crews responded to the scene.

Fire and Rescue NSW said the rig had crossed from the southbound to the northbound lanes of the highway and careered 30 metres off the highway into a gully.

Despite the crash occurring just before 2pm, in a major emergency salvage operation it took emergency crews almost 7 hours to extricate the B-double from bushland with the help of a large crane.

Firefighters from Gulmarrad, Maclean, and Grafton worked quickly to establish containment lines to prevent about 500 litres of diesel that spilt from the trucks ruptured fuel tanks polluting nearby creeks and waterways.

One lane of the highway was blocked when the large crane lifted the prime mover and its empty trailer from the bushland adjacent to the motorway.

Traffic came to a standstill on the motorway following the incident.

The driver of the B-double suffered minor injuries in the incident.