An Alaskan trucker is lucky to be alive after a close call with a gigantic boulder during a major earthquake.
Around 8:30 a.m. on Friday, November 30, truck driver Craig Maddex was driving on the Seward Highway after making a delivery in Kenai, Alaska.
Maddex said he started to notice smaller rocks falling on the highway just before the earthquake, but thought little of it. However when the full force of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit, there was little time for him to react.
The earthquake dislodged numerous large rocks and caused a landslide, sending them crashing down to pummel Seward Highway — and Maddex’s semi truck. With no where to go to escape, Maddex was forced to watch helplessly as a huge boulder hit and demolished the passenger side of his truck.
“When that boulder came down and hit me, it just sounded like a blast going off. It was hair-raising, something I don’t want to experience again, that’s for sure,” Maddex told KTUU.
Though Maddex came just inches from being crushed to death by the heavy boulder, he walked away from the incident with only the smallest of injuries — two scratches on his knuckles.
Maddex said that he did not expect to survive when he saw the boulder heading towards his truck. “I thought I was dead. I’m just thankful. I definitely have an angel looking over my shoulder,” he said.
Aside from walking away with his life, Maddex also got something else out of his brush with death — a new nickname from his fellow truck drivers. “They’re calling me, ‘the Rock Maddex’” he explained, chuckling.