Chennai: A 44-year-old lorry driver died on Thursday night after he was pulled into sludge while he was spraying water on 'manufactured sand' that he was carrying from Thiruvallur.
Police said Arumugam, resident of Maduravoyal, was working as lorry driver in a private company in the city. On Thursday evening, he had picked up a load of manufactured sand from a manufacturing unit at Tiruttani.
Sources said, “He had already sprayed water to avoid sand dust from flying while transporting. Around 10 pm, when he was at Red Hills, the water had dried up and he stopped near a water service centre to again spray water on the sand.
He was spraying the water standing in the heap of sand atop the truck. As the speed of the water was intense, Arumugam got stuck in the sand.”
“He may have raised an alarm to stop the water, but was not heard by employees. The sound of the running motor could have drowned the sound of his voice,” said a police officer.
“On Friday morning, when employees returned to work, they found the lorry standing in the same spot and they climbed atop to investigate. They found a piece of cloth buried inside the sand, and pulled out the body of Arumugam and alerted the Sholavaram police,” said a police officer.
The previous day, employees of the service centre had left the place after switching off the motor, since it was quite late into the night.
On Friday morning, they found Arumugam dead. The body was sent to the Ponneri government hospital. Sholavaram police registered a case and are investigating.
