An Inquest at Woking Coroner’s Court on Tuesday has heard of how a 53-year-old Nigerian man was killed on the motorway when he got out of the car to hitch a ride to Heathrow airport after an argument with his wife over a credit card, the Independent reports.
Florence Olokun-Ola told the Court that she was driving her husband, Nahinmu Nicholas, to the airport to catch a flight to Nigeria and a row broke out between both of them after she asked to have the bank card while he was away.
Mrs Olokun-Ola, who had earlier told how financial problems had caused tension in their relationship, said she no longer felt comfortable driving after the argument started and pulled over to what she thought was the hard shoulder.
She added: ‘He took off his seat belt. As soon as the car stopped he took the keys and opened the boot and took out his luggage. He put it by the crash barrier.’
Mrs Olokun-Ola then told the Court that in an attempt to get her husband back into the car she drove forward a bit but he started to walk back down the carriageway trying to thumb a lift.
The 13-tonne bread lorry struck the couple’s car in the accident just six minutes after they had stopped on the clockwise carriageway of the M25 at junction 6 for Godstone, Surrey, at around 4.30am on April 10 according to the Daily Mail.
She said she felt the force of the collision as the lorry struck the rear of her car.
‘I got out the car and at first I was angry because he didn’t come running over to see if I was okay,’ she said. She then discovered her husband’s body and ran back to the car to dial 999.
The driver of the lorry, Mr Hook, said he was travelling through the roadworks at 50mph. ‘The next thing I knew was there was a dark shadow in front of me,’ he added. ‘I turned straight away to the centre of the carriageway.’
A post-mortem examination concluded that Mr Nicholas died as a result of severe head injuries.
Accident reconstruction officer PC Dominic Gibson said that the stretch of the M25 where the accident happened was unlit. He said there were signs warning that the hard shoulder was now a live lane.
Assistant Surrey Coroner Michael Burgess recorded a verdict that Mr Nicholas, of Dartford, Kent, died as a result of a road traffic collision.
