On October 11, 2018, while stopped for a construction zone flagman, I was hit from behind by a 40 ton semi truck traveling at 50 mph
On the afternoon of October 10, 2018, I left White Salmon, WA through The Dalles, OR on US 97 on my way through San Diego, CA to Yuma, AZ. I was going to start a business and was planning to continue producing fishing videos from the area. I planned the trip for months in advance, upgrading my truck, rigging it for off grid travel. I packed the truck with everything that would fit for a two or three month business/fishing/camping trip and headed south.
US 97 in Oregon is a two lane state highway. The driving conditions are very similar to where I live in the Cascade Mountain foothills. Vehicle traffic at night is nearly 100% tractor trailers (semis). There was a deer migration in the area with plenty of road kill, I was driving very carefully. There was also road construction the entire route with numerous traffic stops. My truck was loaded; I was not in a hurry, driving well below the speed limit. I stopped to sleep for a couple hours and continued on my way.
In Klamath County, Oregon near the small town of Chiloquin, there was another road construction zone. It was marked the same as the previous three or four traffic stops for US 97 construction zones with a traffic flagman in reflective clothing under a bright light powered by a gas generator. It was early in the morning, traffic was light, I was the first vehicle to stop for the flagman. I put the truck in neutral, rolled down the window and prepared for what I thought would be at least a ten minute delay.
I was stopped for a couple minutes when I noticed headlights in the rear view mirrors. The road I had just come down was either flat or slightly inclined so the headlights were dead center of the mirrors. I looked ahead at the flagman and then back into the rear view mirrors. The headlights were much closer. I watched the lights in the mirrors and in a few seconds I realized that it was a large truck and it was not going to stop. I stepped on the clutch, put the truck in gear, turned to the right and stepped on the gas. Because the truck was loaded, it did not move very quickly. The truck moved to the right a few feet, the flagman saw what was happening and jumped in front of my truck. His reflective clothes where only inches from the front bumper. I looked to the right, heard a crash, saw the semi truck front wheel rip the passenger side of the truck away and was then knocked unconscious.
When I came to, I was covered in broken glass; the front tire of the tractor truck was in the glove compartment, the Volvo D13 emblem from the truck in my lap. Everything that was in the cab of the truck was gone. While I was unconscious, the forty ton semi dragged my truck about two hundred feet, scattering my belongings all over the highway and running over construction equipment and lighting along the way.
Construction workers were trying to help me out of the crushed cab of my truck because the semi tractor was leaking diesel fuel. I could not open the door so I crawled through the window. As I tried to get my balance, I declined medical treatment and ambulance ride.
The truck driver was running around asking everyone "why I was stopped in the middle of the road?"
Even though I was
badly injured, I managed to regain consciousness and hold my camera steady for about a minute to shoot the video below just a few minutes after impact with a 40 ton truck.
As the initial shock wore off somewhat, I began to grasp the severity of what had just happened. I was hit by a fully loaded tractor trailer doing fifty miles an hour while I was parked. A foot or two one way or another, both myself and the flagman would have been killed or seriously injured. My truck was absolutely destroyed. The semi crushed the right side of the truck spreading my things in the cab and bed of my truck all across the highway for two hundred feet, running over most of it. It was dark, cold and
I was in quite a bit of pain, but I had to refuse a trip to the ER because I had to roam around through backed up traffic on SR 97 trying to find my belongings. The construction guys helped me, but the truck driver and his passenger were nowhere to be seen.
Concerned with finding my belongings scattered along the highway, I asked Trooper Scott Sheldon, the Oregon State Police Officer at the scene if I needed to exchange insurance information, he told me he would handle that, so thanks to him. I got the phone number of Jon Martin who said he was conducting an investigation for ODOT. As it turns out, "Jon Martin" was not a real person, did not work for ODOT, and gave me a fake phone number.
After being knocked out and suffering from a concussion, roaming around this accident scene trying to salvage my things was like a scene from "The Twilight Zone".
Tow trucks arrived to clear the wreck off the busy highway. As the tow truck pulled my truck out from under the semi, the tractor trailer began to roll down the highway. The truck driver who hit me had not set the brakes of his truck following the accident. People began to yell; the truck driver ran from the side of the road to the truck and applied the parking brakes. My truck, which was unable to roll, was dragged up on the flatbed tow truck, my bicycle, which was ripped off the roof rack on my camper shell, was placed on the truck. I climbed in the truck and we were off to Chiloquin, Oregon.
All this is here because I obeyed the law. If I had not obeyed the law, none of this would be here.
