Veteran Trucker Says He Crashed To Save Lives

A trucker says that he crashed his rig on Monday in order to save the lives of a group of people who had been involved in a previous crash on a Tulsa, Oklahoma roadway.

Motorist Triggers Chain Reaction Crash

The initial crash occurred Tulsa’s Inner Dispersal Loop around 4 p.m when a man driving a white Nissan backed down a ramp because he claimed that he was lost. This maneuver triggered a chain reaction crash involving two other vehicles on the IDL.

Veteran Trucker “Did What I Had To Do”

Trucker Richard Hughes, 63, was hauling an empty tanker down the IDL and came upon the crash scene. The motorists involved were standing around their crashed vehicles. Hughes says he knew that he didn’t have time to stop to avoid hitting them, so he made a split second decision to save their lives: “I just did what I had to do. I mean, I knew I wasn’t going to hit them people.”

He hit his brakes and steered his rig up a concrete embankment, hitting an overhead sign post before coming to a stop.

Hughes was pinned in his truck with his foot trapped against the sign post and some truck parts for two hours as firefighters worked to extract him.

Truck Driver Emerges From Crash With Only A Broken Leg

Hughes only suffered a broken leg during the crash. He says that he knows that he’s lucky to be alive, that he was “praying that wouldn’t be my last day, you know? I think God got his hand on me. Yeah, it was scary.”

Hughes has been a truck driver since 1980.

The driver of the white Nissan, Michael Todd Bennett, admitted that he backed up on the ramp but says he didn’t know that he caused a crash. He was cited for improper backing on a roadway.

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Sources:
News On 6
KTUL
Tulsa World