Crazy Accident 5 Lives on the Line

Discussion in 'Real Life Stories' started by Gmanju, Apr 10, 2009.

  1. This is an accident that happened to me and my dad this winter break. I was talking to some friends today and remembered this scenario and decided to share it here. This will be a fairly long read but an interesting story.

    My dad is a truck driver and contractor and he was going on a quick trip to Wyoming before the holidays. It was going to be a couple of days and I would get to chill in snow. I live in California and there is no snow around here, and I love snow.

    So we get to Wyoming load and unload and set back out to CA. Truck drivers don't care if its day or night, so my dad is driving at 4am after going to bed at 7pm. I'm sitting next to him just looking at the snow and nature as we are going up a hill. The road is all icy and snowed up; we are going about 60-65mph in a 40 footer with chains and full load of 44,000lbs of frozen meat.

    As soon as we can see down the hill we notice there is a heavy duty tow truck trying to pull out another truck from a ditch, right in the middle of the road. No signs or warnings at the top of the hill and the road is completely blocked off, they are about 200 feet away. To make things better, the side of the roads are ditches, about 10 feet deep at about a 70-80 degree angle.

    The front of the tow truck is over the double yellow line separating the road, going around is not an option. Inside the tow truck 2 people are sitting and 1 is standing out side waving his hands giving the driver directions. The driver of the stuck truck is inside his truck trying to navigate out of the ditch he was in. The part where he was in was about 3 feet deep; the ditch gets more evened out with the ground the further you go away from the hill.

    So my dad hits the brakes and the ABS (automatic break system) goes off. All the wheels lock, but the car is not slowing down at all. You can't just stop a fully loaded truck on ice. My stomach felt like it was inside out, my heart felt as it was about to burst out of my chest. My dad has been a driver and engineer his entire life, the only 2 things he cares about in his life is me and his truck. So we can either hit the tow truck straight on or to go for the ditch. My dad chose the ditch.

    He lets go of the brakes and jerks the wheel right and we go flying into a ditch which is 6-7 feet deep at this point. It's like a drop on a rollercoaster but far more intense, feels like someone threw u at the ground. Real life is not a movie, trucks that weight 60,000+ pounds do not get air time, they just fall straight to the ground. It's not that fun falling 7 feet in a truck, when the front cabinet hit the ground, pain shot trough my body, especially my chest. Right after the trailer loaded with 44,000 pounds of frozen meat hit the ground, on the right side of its wheels and nearly flipped, in a split the left side of the trailer hits the ground and jerks the front cabin of the car.

    We hit the ground and we did not crash or get anyone hurt, it seemed like a miracle at the moment. My dad hit the brakes on the frozen grass, the chains got traction and the front started stopping. The front however only weights a fraction of the truck, most of the weight is loaded in the trailer, the truck itself can stop but the trailer will not. The trailer is moving faster then the truck and it starts folding onto us.

    Now what's happening is the truck and trailer are going to get ripped in half and we will stop if we are lucky. If we are unlucky the trailer will fold right next to the truck and just smash us in the trailer of the truck that is stuck about 100ft ahead, killing us both. My dad at this point lets go of the brake and presses the gas all the way so the truck can overtake the speed of the trailer so he can regain control of where he is going.

    The truck jerks forward and pulls the trailer back into a somewhat straight line. My dad then pulls the wheel to the right again to avoid the stuck truck that is in front of us. We can't completely avoid the other truck, the edge of the trailer hits the driver's side, head light get smashed and rips off the side spoiler and some electric wiring. We finally come to slow stop in 2 foot ditch full of frozen grass. I looked at my father, his hands were shacking and he was pouring down in sweat in this freezing weather.

    The damage that could have occurred… If we hit them straight on, 5 people could have and most likely would have died including me and my dad. Also keep in mind that the 44,000 pounds of frozen meat would defrost and rot, the driver is responsible for what he carries. So about 150,000$ in meat, 160,000$ truck and trailer, and the cost of the heavy duty tow truck.

    My dad yelled at the tow people telling them that next time he was going to just run into them and kill them. These people we freaking out as they seen what just happened and knew they all could of died. So much happened in only a few seconds. They pulled us out the ditch; we took a couple hour break, and headed home.
     
  2. crazy shit dude, you're lucky to be alive.
     
  3. Dude that is a crazy ass story! I could see it in my head as I read. I was once in a pretty bad car accident myself. This stupid ass lady lost control of her car cuz she took a curve too fast and came across four lanes of traffic at 55 mph and hit us head on, we were going the other way. So the force knocked us up onto the side of the road.

    I must've blacked out cuz I don't remember that moment of impact at all. I do remember waking up and feeling the worst pain of my life. My lip was literally torn in half, but after they stitched it up there is only a small scar now. My mom got trapped in the car cuz she absorbed most of the impact on her side since she wanted to protect me and my bro. So they had to use the jaws of life to get her out, and her kneecap was shattered all inside her leg and they had this long surgery to remove all the bone fragments. My bro was lucky and only got the breath out of him. I couldn't do shit for a while after that, driving in a car just freaked me out. But it was a long time ago so I'm good now. But shit, if my mom hadn't reacted the way she did things could've been worse. The fire fighters told us that if i hadnt been wearing my seat belt i would've died. o_O

    It's shocking to think about how quickly you can go from just chilling to being in dire straights you know? Sorry to hear about that amount of money being on your dad's head. sometimes crazy shit happens right?
     
  4. SUE EM :devious:
    But thank god nobody died :hello::hello::hello:
     
  5. My dad tries to avoid trouble if he can, I would if I could.
     
  6. Your Dad is a pro driver.
     
  7. Holy crap man that is insane! Your pretty damn lucky. +1 to your dad

    My dad is also a truck driver, and just recently he had the turbo on his truck randomly explode just cruising along a highway, I was gonna go with him for that run too and thank god I didnt. Because the turbo exploded exactly infront of where I would be sitting. Within 45 seconds the entire cabin was on fire, and about 20 seconds later JUST as he had gotten to a pretty good distance both of the fuel tanks exploded too. Thing started a miniature forest fire and melted right into the ground!!! Actually, I think I still have pics of it sitting around here somewhere...
     
  8. Pics or it didn't happen :mad:

    Nah, just joking dude. Crazy fucking story and glad to hear everybody made it out okay. Seems like you dad knows what he is doing and that is always good.
     

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