George Square Bin Lorry Crash

[Poodler]

Edit, better nae

[RAZOR]

Oft.

[DD1903]

He retracted the tweet pretty sharpish after the BBC stepped in

James Matthews, Sky News, tweets: Correction - driver of bin lorry in #georgesquare crash remains in hospital.

I'm pretty sure the police know what's gone on by now...if bevy was involved there'll be a riot...

Aye. The polis will have taken blood from him at the hospital probably, and will be awaiting those results...

[Redforever86]

On Instagram in the last 24 hours...

 

"A homeless man in Glasgow gave the only money he had to buy flowers to lay at George square, no words can describe how special that man is"

 

Clearly nae that special if he doesn't have a home.

 

 

 

"Can't believe the morons at Absolute radio have just played the Smiths "there is a light...." with the famous line "and if a ten ton truck kills the both of us...." arseholes!

[gla5gowdon]

On Instagram in the last 24 hours...

 

"A homeless man in Glasgow gave the only money he had to buy flowers to lay at George square, no words can describe how special that man is"

 

Clearly nae that special if he doesn't have a home.

 

 

 

"Can't believe the morons at Absolute radio have just played the Smiths "there is a light...." with the famous line "and if a ten ton truck kills the both of us...." arseholes!

 

 

Wise up.

[rumpus]

The 18yr old who died with her grandparents was a beautiful young girl and her Mother had seemingly just nipped away to the ATM to withdraw cash.

 

What a sight she must've seen.

[Ke1t]

How long does it take to perform an autopsy or a blood test?

 

I'm always suspicious when the authorities are given all the time they like to come out with answers, usually means they're at it.

 

I'm also skeptical about the whole heart attack thing. Maybe in fiction a heart attack will bring about an uncontrollable, and prolonged 'foot on the accelerator' sort of a spasm, but I'm doubtful about the chances of this actually occurring outside of a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

 

Love the rapidity with which Glasgow has congratulated itself on being a one-off in terms of being humanitarian in the face of tragedy. Even going so far to come out with a pamphlet, just in case someone didn't already know. Us mere non-Weegians can just sort of look on with awe at the only place on the entire planet where basic human decency still exists. If this happened in Aberdeen or Dundee, well, you can imagine.. the people would still be lying there, no-one would have helped, and I doubt there'd even be so much as ONE self-congratulatory poem.

 

Anyone remember Piper Alpha? When Aberdonians were picketing the helipad at Foresterhill? Trying to stop casualties getting flown in? That wouldn't have happened in Glasgow... in fact Glaswegians would have flown out to the rigs personally, like a city full of Supermen, and lifted those poor men out of the water, out of the flames, and carried them in their Angel-like arms to waiting beds in the finest medical facilities the world had to offer. Then they'd have written poems about how awesome they were.

 

The 'Glasgow Spirit'.

 

Yup.

 

Just fucking.. yup.

[gla5gowdon]

How long does it take to perform an autopsy or a blood test?

 

I'm always suspicious when the authorities are given all the time they like to come out with answers, usually means they're at it.

 

I'm also skeptical about the whole heart attack thing. Maybe in fiction a heart attack will bring about an uncontrollable, and prolonged 'foot on the accelerator' sort of a spasm, but I'm doubtful about the chances of this actually occurring outside of a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

 

Love the rapidity with which Glasgow has congratulated itself on being a one-off in terms of being humanitarian in the face of tragedy. Even going so far to come out with a pamphlet, just in case someone didn't already know. Us mere non-Weegians can just sort of look on with awe at the only place on the entire planet where basic human decency still exists. If this happened in Aberdeen or Dundee, well, you can imagine.. the people would still be lying there, no-one would have helped, and I doubt there'd even be so much as ONE self-congratulatory poem.

 

Anyone remember Piper Alpha? When Aberdonians were picketing the helipad at Foresterhill? Trying to stop casualties getting flown in? That wouldn't have happened in Glasgow... in fact Glaswegians would have flown out to the rigs personally, like a city full of Supermen, and lifted those poor men out of the water, out of the flames, and carried them in their Angel-like arms to waiting beds in the finest medical facilities the world had to offer. Then they'd have written poems about how awesome they were.

 

The 'Glasgow Spirit'.

 

Yup.

 

Just fucking.. yup.

 

If it helps people get over it, so what?

 

Were any of you cunts complaining when New Yorkers/Londoners were self congratulatory after their respective issues?

 

Didn't think so.

[Ke1t]

You didn't take my post as criticism, I hope.

[gla5gowdon]

You didn't take my post as criticism, I hope.

 

Looks pretty critical to me.

[Ke1t]

Well, you're probably still just in shock.

 

I can write you a poem, if it'll help?

[gla5gowdon]

Well, you're probably still just in shock.

 

I can write you a poem, if it'll help?

 

Focusing on your sarcastic prose because people are trying their best says it all.

 

This thread is split 50/50 between compassion and critical sarcasm.

 

Has one person praised any of the normal people (regardless if they were weegies, Poles etc.) that helped straight away?

 

Honestly, shower of total cunts.

[Ke1t]

You're confusing my 'criticism' for the sort of wallowing-in-self-pity 'wha's like us' folk who came out with the 'we're the greatest' pamphlet with people who actually get on with it quietly. I'm guessing those who performed cpr didn't then go and pen a poem about it.

 

My displeasure is aimed at misty-eyed anonymous cabby sorts who weren't there, did about as much to help as I did, and then go write vicarious poetry about how great they are. I also don't buy anyone needing the kind of pish I found in my inbox this morning to 'get through it'.

[tup]

Mostly women killed, which says it all about the Christmas shopping demographic.

 

I do mine online.

[Ke1t]

Mostly women killed, which says it all about the Christmas shopping demographic.

 

I do mine online.

 

You could still get hit by an Amazon drone, you smug fucker.

[DD1903]

How long does it take to perform an autopsy or a blood test?

Having spoken to a mate who is a cop...post mortems are curerntly taking between 3-5 days to be done in the glasgow area at the moment due to the 'queue.'

 

As for the blood test. It is sent to a specialist lab for testing. The turn around isn't within a day or 2 either. Good couple of weeks he says. This is the norm for all drink driver cases that require blood to be taken apparently.

[Ke1t]

Having spoken to a mate who is a cop...post mortems are curerntly taking between 3-5 days to be done in the glasgow area at the moment due to the 'queue.'

 

As for the blood test. It is sent to a specialist lab for testing. The turn around isn't within a day or 2 either. Good couple of weeks he says. This is the norm for all drink driver cases that require blood to be taken apparently.

 

I would imagine this might be considered a special case and go to the front of the queue, though.

 

Maybe not.

[DD1903]

I would imagine this might be considered a special case and go to the front of the queue, though.

 

Maybe not.

 

Who knows re the blood testing, but the post mortems are a queue system.

[Redstar]

Who knows re the blood testing, but the post mortems are a queue system.

As per previous...the cops will know...a couple of weeks for things to die down a bit is not a bad thing if...as some have speculated...the boy was bleezing...releasing that sort of stuff at Xmas is out of the question.

[DD1903]

As per previous...the cops will know...a couple of weeks for things to die down a bit is not a bad thing if...as some have speculated...the boy was bleezing...releasing that sort of stuff at Xmas is out of the question.

They may well know from being around him if he was pished, but they won't have the results to prove it as yet.

[ericblack4boss]

A couple of things that may explain how the truck got so far, instead of a gear lever I believe they would have a shuttle shift, I lever fro forward or backwards rather than having to clutch, engage gear, lift clutch etc,

That would explain how it kept going if the driver slump over the wheel and either pushed the lever, or it was already going forward when he took ill, I find it strange that there wasn't an emergency stop outside the lorry at the loading end, these kinds of machinery usually have to be equipped with that which begs the question why did no colleague of the driver hit that button.

[daytripping]

Here's another going on about only in Glasgow, I admire her for helping but why do these people think it wouldn't happen anywhere else, simply bizarre.

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/george-square-i-comforted-one-woman-while-two-casualties-beside-me-died.1419295064

[Poodler]

Here's another going on about only in Glasgow, I admire her for helping but why do these people think it wouldn't happen anywhere else, simply bizarre.

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/george-square-i-comforted-one-woman-while-two-casualties-beside-me-died.1419295064

I've comforted two folk as they died this week and I've never been near Glasgow. In fact, I do it most weeks and I've never worked in Glasgow. Self absorbed nonsense. A poor article that is a slight on healthcare workers all over the country ootside G town. If they care so much why is Glasgow city amongst the highest murders in the uk per population. Why is it number one for domestic abuse etc etc etc.

[ericblack4boss]

There was a young lad killed just along the road from me today, poor lad was fencing on the side of the road when I woman hit his machine it cowped and landed on him, feel sorry for the bereaved army and the poor woman who had her two young kids with her,

Worst thing is I can't attend caley game on Sun cos I've to finish a fence on a roadside notorious for number of cars that leave the road in winter,

[Redstar]

There was a young lad killed just along the road from me today, poor lad was fencing on the side of the road when I woman hit his machine it cowped and landed on him, feel sorry for the bereaved army and the poor woman who had her two young kids with her,

Worst thing is I can't attend caley game on Sun cos I've to finish a fence on a roadside notorious for number of cars that leave the road in winter,

Good to see you're just getting on with it with minimal fuss eb4b...if you fancy writing a poem about it...feel free.

[strachanmcgheegoal]

Just caught the tail of reporting Scotland. Fit was the boy complaining about- anger at the shit the emergency services were taking as they tried to help out? Had he not got the Glasgows miles better email?

 

On a serious point. I said to the wife this morning that with thon granny, granda and 18yo grandchild it means there's a generation left in the middle. Turns out the mum was with them but stopped at the ATM as the lorry hurtled past and took out the other three. Now all rivalry and city pish aside that is seriously fucked up. I would not have a clue what to say to that poor woman.

[ericblack4boss]

Redstar I'll just work away, no fuss, just work on with radio on for game.

[caledonia]

At the end of the day it was a tragedy no matter where it happened as i think it was gla5gowdon that said it previously

If people want to talk up Glasgow its no big deal why all the jealousy

 

Like the helicopter tragedy up here its still people losing their lives and i cant remember anyone going on about the driver there being stoned/drunk etc etc

In situations like that there are likely to be heroes or people who will drop everything to help its nature and the TV companies will always show this as its news and rightly so

[Henry]

People make Glasgow, say the posters, and the city makes its people, writes Peter Ross

 

 

It was the saddest of Glaswegian sights: the statue of the Duke of Wellington, traffic cone on his head, bathed in blue light from emergency vehicles, as he looked down from his horse on to Queen Street where paramedics fought to save lives.

 

Usually a symbol of the gallus Glasgow spirit, the statue now represented the tragedy of a city struck an awful blow in the midst of Christmas revelry.

 

Just a street or two away, unaware of the unfolding horror, shoppers continued to hunt for gifts and a busker played Jingle Bells on the bagpipes.

 

Slowly, though, word spread. Faces grew pale and pained. Crowds began to move towards the police tape, staring helplessly down closed-off streets, and a thought arose, so clear you could almost see it etched into the rainclouds. Not again.

 

The story of the Clutha helicopter crash, last Christmas, as reported on TV and in the newspapers, conformed quickly to a particular narrative: this had happened to Glasgow, a wound to the soul of the city; the courage displayed, people rushing into the pub to bring the injured out, was seen as a particularly Glaswegian sort of tender heroism.

 

And so it is again now. In the face of terror and seeming danger, people ran towards the scene. Those with first aid training tended and comforted the injured. Coats were removed and laid tenderly over the faces of those for whom it was already too late.

 

“Glasgow is a broken-hearted city,” said Nicola Sturgeon yesterday morning, but she praised, too, the “spirit of Glasgow” and noted that she was proud to be able to call it her home. So are we all. This story of Glasgow which we like to tell ourselves – a story of selflessness, endurance, a sense of community forged by shared hardship – brings us pride in the good times, notably during the Commonwealth Games, and offers consolation during the bad. We can thole a great deal because we are, none of us, alone.

 

PEOPLE Make Glasgow – so says the sign looming over George Square – and it is also true that Glasgow makes people. Call this sentimentality if you wish, but this is a city which, though shadowed and shamed by poverty and violence, also breeds kindness, compassion and comradeship.

 

You can feel it in the pubs, the churches, streets and schemes. In the generosity of the café staff who gave hot drinks to survivors and witnesses and helped them to wash off the blood.

 

You can read it in the tweets of taxi driver David Farrell who offered to take anyone caught up in the crash home or to hospital for free. In the actions of the emergency services, many of them, no doubt, with difficult memories of the Clutha. Glasgow is heartbroken, yes, but what a heart.

 

That this tragedy took place by George Square gives it both a particular dreadfulness – the density of the crowds would have been greater there than anywhere else in the city – and a deeper resonance.

 

The square is Glasgow’s living room. It is an amphitheatre of memory, the scene of fist fights and first kisses, picnic lunches and carry-oots, protests and celebrations; newborn love and Auld Lang Syne. From the Red Clydesiders of 1919 to the Games Clydesiders of this summer to the Yes rallies of the referendum, it has always been about the masses.

 

THE 13 statues, high on their plinths, have been silent witnesses to a century and more of joy and fear. They have seen the best of Glasgow, the power of its people, and the awful sights and sounds of Monday will, in time, pass into that long history. But not yet. Not while it hurts like this. It was strange to see the Christmas lights, those bright electric bells, continuing to toll above the square as the rescue services did their work. The gaudy neon angel at the corner of Queen Street and West George Street became an unlikely guardian of the city’s best hopes.

 

The council had offered to turn the lights off as a mark of respect, but police asked for them to be left on for a few hours in order to aid their efforts as daylight gave way to dusk.

 

The sight jarred a little, but it did not feel in poor taste. Rather, it spoke of Glasgow’s resilience, the way that darkness is never absolute here.

 

All over the city, in solidarity, people switched off the lights of their Christmas trees and lit candles instead. You could see these in windows as you walked the streets – each dim glow a kind of prayer.

 

We didn’t know their names then. Jack, Lorraine and Erin. Gillian, Stephenie, Jacqueline. But we felt their loss. We felt for the families who will have to go through Christmas and for the rest of their lives without these people they love. You could feel that in Glasgow on Monday and you can feel it still – a collective sorrow, a great racking city-wide sob. There is a power in that, though. It’s not true to say that pain shared is pain lessened, indeed in some ways it is more intense for being so widespread, but we know that when we come through this we will do so together. And we will come through it. And we will give whatever support we can to those affected directly. For this is a city of survivors.

 

GLASGOW is a passionate city, people often say. The passion they’re talking about is usually to do with sport or politics. But Glaswegians also know all about passion in its older sense, meaning suffering. Glasgow has done its share of suffering – during the war, in disasters, at times of want – but the beauty of the place is that the people are always ready with the kind word, the arm round the shoulder.

 

We are, too often, visited by these calamities. The football crush. The factory explosion. The fallen helicopter. And now this. Yet we cope with these things as a family, a tribe. By Monday evening, as night fell, there were already hundreds of bunches of flowers laid in Royal Exchange Square, at the side of the art gallery, and more people were arriving all the time, bending in silence to lay their tribute, as the sombre crowds looked on.

 

One message, near the back, stood out. It was signed not by any individual name but by “The Spirit Of Glasgow” and was typical of the city in its gentle defiance – part hug, part clenched fist. “Even in our darkest moments,” it read, “we stand united.”

[The Boofon]

There was a young lad killed just along the road from me today, poor lad was fencing on the side of the road when I woman hit his machine it cowped and landed on him, feel sorry for the bereaved army and the poor woman who had her two young kids with her,

Worst thing is I can't attend caley game on Sun cos I've to finish a fence on a roadside notorious for number of cars that leave the road in winter,

West of Fochabers and East of Inverness by the sound of it.

 

Lethal that stretch of road. I'm shitting myself about Sunday's trip to Caley away.