Stroies from the Road: Halloween Edition

I originally posted this a long time ago here at DU, but I'm posting it again at the request of another DUer.

Strange and scary things happen out on the road sometimes.

I think it was December of 2005 when we had a terrible month for winter weather here in Ohio. Something like five big storms that month. I had a dedicated run from Dayton to Toledo and back. It was about 360 miles which isn't all that long by trucking standards, but when you have to drive the whole way in snow and ice it seems more like a thousand miles. It was in one of those storms that one of my co-workers got into a horrible wreck.

It had starting snowing on my way to Toledo and it was dark. I made it up there okay and was thankful for the 42,000 pound load of transmissions that I was getting. That heavy weight comes in handy in the snow and ice. When I got back on the highway to come back to Dayton I saw that conditions had seriously deteriorated in the time that it took me to get loaded. I got up on the highway and didn't feel safe going faster than 30 mph, so I took it nice and easy. I began to see trucks jack-knifed and cars run off the road everywhere. Strangely, most of them were on the northbound side of I-75. I was hoping that I'd be able to make it back to Dayton without getting stuck behind a road closure. I saw a few cars and trucks wrecked on my side, but they were off of the road. Those on the northbound side weren't as lucky. I counted 12 trucks wrecked and the road closed in three places.

I was fortunate, though.

I made it down to about Piqua, 30 miles from my destination, and that's when I saw the fatal wreck. One of the drivers from my company had jack-knifed into the median of the highway. I later learned that he was alright when that happened. He had called work to tell them and a cop was soon on the scene. But as he sat there in the cab, maybe calling his wife to tell her he would be later than he thought, but, yes, he was okay, death approached at 60 mph. Another truck driver coming up on the scene of the accident in the same direction was going too fast for road conditions. His truck slipped and jack-knifed in about the same place as my co-worker's and he slid off into the median headed directly for his truck.

The side of the second trucker's trailer collided with the first driver's cab and completely smashed it, killing my co-worker instantly. I rolled up on the scene right after it had happened- there was only the one cop still there and he was fortunate not to have been hit as well. I looked at that wreck and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I'd never seen any wreck like that and the thought that someone I knew had probably been killed just a few minutes before kind of blew my mind. The driver was 50 years old, married, and had two children.

This next one is not one I witnessed, but it is a trucking legend and I'm betting that a few of you may have heard it as well. In rural Texas one morning a school bus came upon a railroad track crossing. The bus driver saw a train coming, but thought he could beat it as it was a good ways down the line still. He started to cross the tracks and the bus stalled. Everyone panicked and could not get off of the bus because of the hysteria. The train hit the bus killing several children.

A few years later a couple came upon the same railroad track crossing. They saw a train coming, but the driver thought he could beat it. The car stalled as the train approached. The driver franticly tried to get the car started again when the car started to roll on its own and cleared the tracks just in time. Then it came to a stop. The driver got out of the car and started looking around. On the trunk, etched into the dust of the dirty car, there were small hand prints. The hand prints of children.

I was rolling across I-68 in West Virginia one time when my truck ran out of fuel. I had thought that I'd had enough fuel to get me to the next truck stop, but I came up about 10 miles short. It was out in the country and dark. I did not have a cell phone or the fancy satellite communications that a lot of trucks have now days, so I hopped out of the truck and started walking. Thankfully, a friendly trucker saw me, pulled over, and offered me a ride. I was glad to see that. I had no idea how far it was to the nearest phone. It turned out to be about 3 miles. The driver dropped me at an old gas station that was closed, but it had a pay phone. I thanked him and he departed.

There was nothing else around besides the gas station- just forest. And it was very dark. I started getting creeped out and thinking about Bigfoot and other supernatural creatures that might be roaming the woods. I got on the phone and was able to get a hold of a road mechanic that worked out of that truck stop I had been hoping to get to. I told him where I was and he said he'd pick me up in a bit.

I hung up the phone and my mind immediately started racing. I started hearing what sounded like the foot steps of something big and heavy. I looked all around and they stopped. Then they would start up again. Let me tell you, I was scared shitless...until I noticed something. The foot step sound seemed too close for me not to be seeing anything. Then I realized that I was the source of the foot steps. It was the sound of my heart beating.

It gets awfully quiet out in the country, too quiet for me.