At the time of going to press a member of Namport’s security staff, Hendrik Richard, was still being treated for serious head injuries in a Walvis Bay hospital after he was severely injured on Monday in the course of trying to contain a fire that broke out on a refrigerated truck. Richard and others scrambled to extinguish a fire that raged on the truck’s refrigeration unit only a stone’s throw from the port’s massive fuel storage plant and in the process a fire extinguisher fell on his head.

Members of the public interviewed said a massive explosion could be heard from the truck shortly after 10h00 on Monday and the truck’s entire mechanical horse was instantly engulfed in flames. The truck was parked outside the main gate of the fuel storage plant.
The first to tackle the fire was the driver of the truck, followed by Namport’s security personnel and also workers of Puma Energy at the fuel storage plant joined in. It is suspected that the driver slipped in the process and his fire extinguisher fell to the ground, hitting Richard on the head. When paramedics of St. Gabriel Community Ambulance reached the scene Richard was unconscious and was battling for his life. An emergency brain-scan was carried out on him, and he remains in a critical, but stable condition, with severe head trauma.
Both the Namibia Ports Authority and Puma Energy are expected to lodge a full investigation into the incident, as it involves an employee injured on duty [although not on Namport’s premises] and because the fire-fighting system of the fuel depot had to be deployed. The fuel-storage plant belongs to all Namibia’s oil companies, but Puma Energy is tasked with managing it. The truck that caught fire belongs to Tarr Trucking in Cape Town’s Brackenfell.