A truck driver was killed after stopping to help two people inside a pickup that swerved off an icy road.
It happened on Saturday, around 1 a.m., in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
According to the Mansfield News Journal, 52-year-old Cowen Truck Line driver Scott Banks stopped his tractor trailer on Interstate 77 north after spotting a 1997 Ford Ranger pickup truck in a drainage ditch off the Worthington Creek Bridge.
Banks discovered that the Ford pickup hit a patch of ice and slid off the bridge. As he was helping the occupants of the pickup, a 2005 Dodge Durango SUV slipped on the bridge and went airborne, over the bridge railing, and struck the truck driver who stopped to help. Banks was transported to Marietta Memorial Hospital in Ohio, where he was later pronounced dead.
Two occupants from the Ford pickup suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Four out of seven people in the Dodge Durango also suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The passenger from the Ford Ranger wrote a heart wrenching Facebook post describing the incident.
We slid off the road and got stuck in the ditch. The truck driver stopped and helped us by making sure we were ok and flashing his flash light to warn other vehicles. We were fine and just waiting on a tow truck to pull us out of the ditch so we could continue to head home. Another vehicle lost control and hit our truck and then flipped over the truck and hit Joe and the truck driver. Joe was slung about 15 feet but got up and seems fine but the truck driver was unresponsive.
After finding out Banks passed away, she posted this update.
Please pray for the truck driver’s family. We got information that he passed away. 🙁 I can’t deal with this! He was only there to help us! Please if anyone knows who he was or how to get a hold of his family, please let us know. We want to let the family know that he died a hero! His name was Scott Banks.
“He was trying to be a good guy,” said Sgt. B. A. Pickens with the Wood County Sheriff’s Office. “Just the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Banks is survived by a wife of 30 years and two children.
A ‘Hero Memorial Fund for Scott Banks’ has been established, with all proceeds going to the Banks family. Please head to the GoFundMe Campaign to contribute.