A trucker is being hailed as a hero after his actions saved the life of a fellow driver. After being rear-ended as part of a multi-vehicle crash, the driver pulled a man out of a cab which was engulfed in flames only seconds later.
Shortly after 2pm on Sunday, a multi-vehicle crash occurred in the Westbound lanes of I-80 near Walcott, Iowa. It was a five-vehicle accident. A preliminary investigation by the Iowa State Patrol shows that the accident occurred when a tractor trailer rear-ended a fuel truck and flipped off the road.
Robert Smith was the driver of the fuel truck that was rear-ended. After climbing out of his truck uninjured, he went to check on the driver behind him.
“(I) approached the truck, yelled out to see if I was going to get a response because to be perfectly honest, from what I was seeing I didn’t think that he would be alive,” said Smith according to KCRG.
Fortunately though, Smith got a response right away. When he wasn’t able to kick in the window, he called to other bystanders for a crowbar. While they were scrambling and calling for help, Smith got a metal rod and broke open the window.
“I asked the driver if he could move, he said he could, and I said basically you need to get out now or you’re going to die and he came crawling out the window, I scooped him up off the ground and away from the truck we went,” said Smith.
A video posted on Facebook by Smith’s daughter, Julia, captures the dramatic rescue.
“A bunch of people have called me a hero and I guess, there’s heroes out there but I don’t necessarily feel it,” said Smith. “I feel I did what needed to be done and I don’t know if that makes me a hero.”
The rescued driver was admitted to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
God Bless the trucker and everyone there. Excellent work.
Even though we here alot of bad things about trucker’s, this shows their are good drivers who do more then just drive they show us their compassion to help a fellow driver in need of immediate safety !!!!
I thought the article said it was a fuel truck that got rear ended . . .
Thank you for the question on the fuel truck.I feel we need more stories like this. The bad outweigh the good That are reported on.
This man did not think of himself at all. Just the safety of others.
I haven’t been behind the wheel in awhile. With all the changes I thought maybe they changed the way they hauled it. 😂 the great fact checkers of the world strike again.
It did say fuel truck but it looked liked a feed truck, but the main thing is everyone’s ok, that driver is a hero for saving the other driver, good job driver,
Amazing how God puts people in the right place always.
Great job driver, most people seem to panic and freeze in a situation like this.
In cases like this, a few minutes is all you have, make the right decisions & moves & lives can be saved! He even saved his own trailer from further damage. Luckily there only seemed to be a couple cars that didn’t slow enough, but everyone was ok.