A truck driver who was sacked by his company after ramming into a historic bridge on Harrington Sound is crying foul.

He says the company, Bermuda Forwarders, should accept some of the blame for the accident as he had only been working with them for a month and relied on the company?s dispatchers for directions around the Island.

Michael Tucker was driving a flat-bed container truck on Harrington Sound Road on June 13 when he attempted to drive underneath the 1920s-built bridge of Manor House, which stretches across the road.

The truck was too high to pass ? falling short by as much as three feet, Manor House director Richard Gibson estimated ? and collided with the bridge with sufficient force to crack the inside of the tower.

Mr. Tucker accepts some responsibility for the accident but does not feel he is solely to blame.

A truck driver in the US for decades before coming to the Island, he said: ?I?ve never had an accident in my life, over 18 years of experience in driving trucks.?

Mr. Tucker said it was protocol for the company?s dispatchers to tell him where he could and could not go every day because he was new to the job.

He pointed out that they have told him to stay away from certain areas of Fairylands before and other streets.

?I accept my responsibility for the accident and not being totally aware,? he said. ?Now that I am coherent I remember coming around the corner and seeing that bridge and scrambling for brakes.

?They sent me down Harrington Sound and didn?t tell me to watch out for the bridge. The only place in Bermuda you are not supposed to go and you don?t tell me ? come on that?s a no brainer.?

But Bermuda Forwarders? operations manager Hal Kempe said Mr. Tucker should have seen a road sign in plain sight that warns of the bridge?s height.

?There is a sign right before the bridge. As an operator of a vehicle, it is his responsibility to obey all road signs and, from a sheer common sense point of view, you shouldn?t fly under a bridge if you?re not sure you can fit,? Mr. Kempe said.

?We asked Works and Engineering to clear foliage from the sign a few months ago to make sure it was visible and they did. He should have seen it.

?He never touched his brakes. There were no skid marks or anything.?

He added that Mr. Tucker was only one month into his three-month probation period and, as such, it was within the company?s rights to fire him.

?We have never had an accident to this degree,? Mr. Kempe said. ?His lack of judgement is going to cost this company a lot of money.?

The two parties also disagree on the manner in which the driver was fired, with Mr. Tucker claiming he was fired on the spot, while Mr. Kempe claims the company was more sensitive to the driver.

Mr. Tucker sustained a broken wrist, possible chest injuries and a fractured leg from the accident.

He said no one from the company contacted him to see how he was doing and he is concerned that he will no longer have health insurance after 30 days as a result of being fired.

?I was fired before the ambulance even got there,? Mr. Tucker said. ?Representatives showed up at the scene of the accident and a company representative came and drove right passed me. They didn?t stop to help me, they removed the truck from the scene of the accident.

?They didn?t come to show concern about me. I was in the hospital and I received telephone calls in the emergency room. One told me I was terminated and the other told me to return their four t-shirts and Corporation of Hamilton dock pass.?

But Mr. Kempe said the company did show concern.

?We called three times to check up on him but he never answered,? he said. ?On the third time we informed him that his services were no longer needed.?