Philip Curmi is still coming to terms with his brush with death after his vehicle crashed and ended up suspended on the Regional Road bridge last Wednesday – but he blames poor road surface for the accident.

At around 8 a.m. on Wednesday, Mr Curmi, 49, from Fgura, was on his way to Ibraġ to carry out installations for the aluminium firm he works for.

That morning, it had rained hard, and the ground was still wet when he was driving the company’s Toyota Dyna at around 40 km/h.

“As I was driving in the inside lane, the double wheel of my truck was caught by the metal expansion gap, and the truck skidded from the rear to the right, bumping into the barrier on the passenger side,” Mr Curmi said.

The truck, out of control due to the “greasy” surface of the road, rebounded and spun over to the other side. Since the road tilts downwards, the vehicle gained momentum, smashing into the barrier, leaving Mr Curmi and his colleague Simon Azzopardi, 25, hanging precariously over the road below the bridge.

“When we found ourselves hanging over the street, we both went insane. I told him not to panic and that we would find a way out of the van,” Mr Curmi said, tears welling up in his eyes as he recounted the ordeal.

“In the meantime, I was afraid someone would crash into us from behind and send us down. In the same way I skidded, others could have skidded too,” the father-of-two said. Had the truck fallen, it would have plunged front-first, and the already beaten cabin would not have withstood the five-storey drop.

Mr Curmi thought of his wife and children and resolved to get out of the vehicle in time.

Crucially, the oncoming cars happened to stop well behind the scene of the accident and motorists got out of their cars to help.

Mr Curmi called out to the other motorists to sit on the truck’s cargo bed to counter-balance the truck. The driver recalled four to five men keeping the truck horizontal, while a “tall, well-built man” stood close to the precipice and helped pull the two out of the vehicle.

“I don’t know how I managed to get out of that window; I’m not usually very agile, but at that moment I felt very light,” Mr Curmi said.

Thanks to the immediate help of passing motorists, the pair spent just three minutes in the truck: “If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be alive,” the driver said.

Luckily, no cars were being driven on the road below, as concrete from the smashed barrier came crashing down.

His wife, Monica, is convinced Our Lady of Mt Carmel, to whom she is devoted, played a part, but is immensely grateful to her husband’s rescuers “who risked their lives to save him”.

Meanwhile, Mr Curmi appealed to the authorities to fix the surface of the road and to install a metal crash barrier.Transport Minister Austin Gatt has called for expert opinion on the bridge’s infrastructure, and said the accident “cannot be described as anything more comforting than a lucky escape”.

Mr Curmi warned young, inexperienced, drivers on their way to Paceville to drive carefully –“because even if you walked on that surface, you’d still slip”.