In Raymond, Iowa, a truck driver escaped a terrifying collision, practically unscathed.
The incident occurred on Wednesday around 9:15 a.m. on I-380 located right before the U.S. Highway 20 interchange outside Raymond.
According to The Courier, semi driver, 68-year-old Curry Viverette Jr. of Ford Heights, Illinois was headed northbound. When he entered a curve, his rig overturned in the right shoulder.
Viverette said jokingly:
“My truck told me that it was tired, and it wanted to go to sleep.”
On his way to work, DirecTV employee, 31-year-old Joe Nichols came across the scene.
Motorist Nick Johnson of La Porte City also witnessed the semi rollover and stopped to help. The two climbed on-top of the overturned cab and attempted to bull Viverette out.
Nichols commented:
“I couldn’t get the door open, so he jumped up and held the door, and then we started shimmying him and holding him up … And then it went south real bad,”
Suddenly, a semi truck driven by 52-year-old Daniel Joseph Mahon of Philadelphia entered the scene.
It smashed into Nichol’s parked DirecTV van.
Nichols and Johnson ducked for cover and tried to protect Viverette from what they expected to be another collision.
The impact of the crash sent the DirecTV van careening into a ditch. That’s when Mahon’s cab became airborne.
Nichols said:
“Higher than this truck when it hit my van. It just instantly burst into flames. I thought he (Mahon) was dead.”
Mahon’s burning truck veered to the left of the Illinois semi and rolled onto the right shoulder. The man trapped inside escaped through a broken window.
Mahon explained:
As soon as I had impact, I had flames shoot out the side of the truck,”
He continued:
“I must have ruptured a tank. Then the truck rolled down the driver’s side. I tried to kick the windshield out, couldn’t get out that way, so I climbed up and tried to avoid the flames the best I could.”
He furthered:
“The Lord helped me out.”
Mahon escaped with only minor cuts, bruises and scratches.
Nichols ran to Mahon’s semi and tried to extinguish the flames with a fire extinguisher, but his efforts were in vain.
Emergency crews from Raymond, Gilbertville and La Porte City fire departments arrived at the scene, along Evansdale police and medics, Black Hawk County sheriff’s deputies and the Iowa State Patrol troopers.
Firefighters worked to put out the inferno.
The damage was extensive.
Interestingly, the two truck drivers realized that they were both hauling plumbing supplies to the Ferguson company warehouse in Waterloo.