Roger Kirwan, owner of Sydney’s Kirwan Print Group, escaped with minor injuries after a speeding truck ploughed into an outdoor table at Starbucks in Salt Lake City and killed one of two friends he was meeting for a coffee.
Kirwan with admitted to hospital with minor injuries but has since been released.
Editor's note. The news is not as good we first reported. Roger has been in touch from the US, where he's recovering after being seriously battered about. He writes, "I was in hospital in critical condition for four days, with multiple injuries including a punctured lung and many fractures and including a vertebrae. My brother has come to the US to assist in getting me home.'
While we're all in favor of not making too much of our troubles, Carl Butchard, GM, had a much lighter view when we first spoke with him in Sydney. We'll keep you updated on Roger's progress.
“Roger’s good but he’s shaken up and he’s cutting short his trip. He’ll be flying back at the end of this week,” says Kirwan Print GM Carl Butchard, speaking from the company’s factory at Brookvale in northern Sydney. “From what I can tell, a person had a medical incident and the truck drove across traffic and jumped the curb.”
The victim has been identified as 48-year-old Joslyn Spilsbury of Salt Lake City, who was a mental health counsellor in private practice in Salt Lake County and the mother of a young daughter.
Police believe the driver, 34-year-old West Walker of Oakley, Utah, suffered some kind of medical episode, perhaps a seizure, prior to the crash. They’re awaiting the results of toxicology tests.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said a truck traveling at high speed crashed into a group of people on the Starbucks patio.
“We have information that a truck driving on Highland at a high rate of speed went over the curb, and went into Starbucks,” Rivera told Fox13 Salt Lake City. “One person is deceased. The truck driver was just extricated. It doesn’t look like it was intentional.”
Kirwan and another person were admitted to hospital after the freak acident. Kirwan was released from hospital on Friday but the second person remained hospitalized in critical condition. Two children inside the truck also suffered minor injuries.
Three weeks ago, Kirwan told Print21 that Kirwan Print Group was planning a major expansion that will include doubling its factory size and investing in new technology to transform the group’s Roller Poster unit into full service flexible packaging company called Creatabull Flexibles.