A FIREFIGHTER working part time for a removals firm called Precision managed to get his truck stuck under a bridge after confusing feet and metres.
The unnamed fireman got the vehicle wedged tight as he tried to drive into the underground car park at Morrisons in Granton, Edinburgh.
The red-faced driver, who normally works at the city’s Crewe Toll fire station, was forced to deflate the box van’s tyres to help free the vehicle.
Even then, four men had to jump up and down inside the van to finally get it unstuck from the bridge.
The driver suffered the indignity of colleagues from his fire station driving past during the antics.
And to make his embarrassment complete, a snap of the incident on Tuesday afternoon has made its way onto the website Edinburgh’s Worst Drivers, which publishes motoring blunders for all the world to see.
Andrew McPherson, director of Edinburgh firm Precision Moves, ruefully admitted one of his vehicles had got wedged under the bridge.
Andrew said of the driver: “He has worked part-time for our company for a few years. His full time job is a fireman.
“His fire department drove past at the same time so he’s getting a bit of stick from them as well as from us.”
Andrew added: “There was no damage to the van so I just laughed it off and told him to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“We’ve been in business for seven years and this is the first time anything like this has happened before.“
Andrew said the accident happened because the bridge height was show in metric – 2.15m – while the clearance warning inside the van is in imperial.
He said: “The driver had just come back from holiday, he didn’t even realise what had happened until he got stuck.
“He was probably still in holiday mode.
“The van height is in feet and the roof height was in metres so he must have got confused.
“He drove in forwards and the back end clipped the top so he got stuck.
“We had to get co-workers to come down and deflate all of the tyres and then four of them jumped up and down on the back of the van to get it to move.
“The whole thing took about 45 minutes, much to the amusement of shoppers.
“Then they pushed it round to the garage, on the site and put the air back in before returning to work.
The caption on Edinburgh’s Worst Drivers says: “Was this another ‘Precision Move’ by Precision Moves? There was a height restriction sign, driver may need to go to Specsavers!”
