After truck overturns neighbors rally to help recover spilled cargo

May 25, 2019

Rather than loot the goods, residents form human chain to load spilled contents in truck. — Rather than loot the goods, residents form human chain to reload spilled contents.

When cargo trucks are involved in highway accidents, the goods they are carrying are generally viewed as property that is up for grabs.

Beer is a particularly popular product among looters, who have even been known to steal the tires off the truck.

But that wasn’t the case on Thursday in Ixtlahuaca, México state, when a truck rolled over, spilling products made by Gamesa, Mexico’s largest maker of cookies.

About 80 residents of San Pedro de los Baños spontaneously organized themselves, some surrounding the truck to protect it while others collected the spilled merchandise and temporarily stored it in a nearby house.

Then they waited for the trucking company to send another truck to collect the merchandise. When it arrived, residents went back to work.

A Facebook video posted by Emmanuel Ines shows a human chain loading the boxes of products on to the second truck.

“There are a lot of videos where people loot trucks after accidents,” wrote Ines. “But this is a very different story, and it deserves to be recognized, and to serve as a teaching moment for everyone who sees it . . . Change starts within.”