A MAN from Medway has become the 28th person to die on the A228 in the last

10 years.

The man, believed to be in his late 40s, was killed when his car and a 38-tonne lorry collided head-on near Stoke Crossing, on the main road to the Isle of Grain, just before midnight on Friday.

The man, who was travelling towards Strood in a white Ford Escort, suffered fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. His name is not being disclosed until relatives have been informed.

The lorry driver, believed to be Eastern European, was travelling in the opposite direction towards Thamesport, Grain, when the two vehicles collided. The lorry driver suffered only minor injuries.

A Fire Brigade spokesman said:: "It looks like the two cars hit each other head-on and the lorry had forced the car into a marsh drainage ditch and squashed it.

"It took us more than two hours to cut the man out of his car - but unfortunately he was dead."

Less than a month ago a 44-year-old mother of five, Vanessa Baker, of Marlborough Road, Gillingham, was killed in a similar accident about a quarter of a mile away. The accident that claimed Mrs Baker's life happened just yards from the scene of another tragedy in March, 200, when six-year-old Daniel Wright and family friend

Kenneth Geddes drowned when a lorry driven by Mr Geddes overturned into a

ditch.