WHEN I spotted a driver on the ground under the back of a semi trailer at a roadhouse parking area, my first thought was to yell out and ask did he need help.
It was 10.30am and the drizzling rain would have made it very uncomfortable for the truckie.
Soon after he rolled out from under the old Kenworth and stood a few metres from me.
“Any chance of a pic for the Big Rigs paper?” I asked him and would not have been surprised if he had told me to piddle off in no uncertain terms, such were his circumstances.
However, Adam Thurrowgood was happy to yarn and have some pics snapped.
“This is a 1992 Kenworth K100E and a pin had come out of the brake booster and I repaired it. It must have loosened on a rough road I travelled on,” he said.
A Brisbane-based owner-operator, Thurrowgood revealed he also has a 1978 Kenworth K125 at his Brisbane property.
You never know who you will meet at such roadhouses and rest areas and that was the case with the friendly Thurrowgood.
“I am also a stunt man and that side of the business went quiet when the coronavirus pandemic started last year,” he said.
The business is named Full Throttle Stunts and Thurrowgood is one of Australia’s top motorcycle stunt riders.
He faces danger every time he performs breathtaking acts on a bike.
Testimony to that is he has broken more than 25 bones during performances around the country.
Thurrowgood who began riding stunt back in 2017 is well also known for his trademark beard.
“It was a lot longer than it is now,” he said.
In August 2020 he suffered a brain injury over jumping a table top on a BMX, coming off hard, fracturing his skull, shattering his collar bone.
One week post accident he began suffering seizures and was one seizure off ICU.
Looking like he was going to be cactus he managed to bounce back and within two months was back on his bike only a few weeks after surgery on that shattered collar bone and surgeons took the beard.
Aged 34, Thurrowgood said that in this modern area, a lot of truckies would be reluctant to stop and help one of their colleagues who was broken down beside a highway.
“I do stop but, and just recently I helped pull a B-double out of a bog near Torren’s Creek on the road to Aramac,” he said.
That is one of the worst roads he get to travel on as well as the Julia Creek to Cloncurry stretch of the Flinders Highway.
Thurrowgood has been a truckie for the past 15 years and said that and stunt work complemented each other.
Outside both careers, Thurrowgood enjoys getting new tattoos to add to his impressive tally which are evident on both arms.
And he did manage to make the repairs that day.
“I think a driver that can work sets apart an owner driver with a good solid work ethic and pride in what they do from the steering wheel attendants,” he said in a thought provoking comment.