I was meaning to post this, but I was hoping I would have some photos to go along with the story. They were never emailed to me so I will have to describe the scene.
Last friday a friend and I were coming back from S.D. at around 1 am, it had been raining for the past hour or so and the roads were slick. It never rains in southern california so there was a good amount of dust and oil on the road floating up.
We get off the freeway onto a 6 lane straight road when ahead coming from the opposite direction I see a fullsize pickup truck sliding sideways from his left lane to the right lane, very fast, i tell my friend "whoa whoa look!" and the truck flys into a median seperating the road we are on to the onramp for the freeway, the curb spins the truck around and unfortunately it hits a traffic signal pole right smack in the passenger side, the force perfectly perpendicular to the truck.
The force was so brutal that this enormous pole bent, sparks flew, and two of the three traffic signals on this pole go flying in my direction with debris going everywhere. I was the only car on the road to see this, I slam to a stop and immediately dial 911 as my buddy darts from the car to the other side of the road, I follow, and a car that was apparently somewhere behind this truck just cruises through the accident scene at like 45 and hits one of the traffic signals which then nearly hit me, and then keeps on going.
We get to this truck and it is easily the worst thing I have ever seen, its a chevy 1500 extended cab and the engine bay is at a 90 degree to the rest of the truck, the light pole has nearly sliced it in half, its literally foot or two away from the drivers side door which was bowed out, and jammed, the window on that door did not break so all we could see was the sillouhette of a person inside, as im talking to 911 my buddy is trying to open the door, the truck is still running making a sound I will never forget in my life, it was just chugging probably at like 1500 rpm , shooting sparks and smokes from underhood.
There is no response from the person we can see, my immediate thought is that he was for sure dead. The pole was literally pushing him into the door.
I notice the base sticker on the truck and know its a Marine, my buddy and I are Marines and we were heading to his base which was right up the street. I didnt want to see someone I may have known dead.
Finally some other jarheads pull over to help and we all start yanking on the door, about this time we hear a sound from inside like a "ohhh" and we look at eachother and could not believe this guy was alive, we manage to yank the door open and inside there was an older marine who was really messed up bad, his right leg was like a pretzel, he had a dent in his cranium, and was bleeding from somewhere. The inside of the truck was crushed in every single area up to about a 2 feet from the drivers door, you could see the pole plain as day right next to where this guys head was.
The ignition key would not cut the truck off and it was still chugging and smoking, I was afraid it was going to catch fire or something so I grabbed a pole and tried jamming up the crank hoping it would cause it to stall. It wasnt working and just adding sparks so I stopped. Meanwhile another guy that came up to help was trying to extract this guy from the truck, I didnt think that was such a good idea at the time, it didnt seem like there was an imminent explosion or fire about to happen. He moved him a few inches and you could just see his leg wiggle around like it was a rope.
So I just tried talking to the guy to keep him from going into shock, he was completely dazed out of his mind, I asked him the same questions over and over, like what his name was, and he eventually answered "charles" and then I tried asking him about where he worked, trying to get a common bond between us but he was not coherent. Another guy asked if there was anyone with him and for some reason he nodded, I then looked carefully inside and the truck was so crushed i honestly could not tell if there was anyone else in there. If there was they were paste.
Eventually the fire department showed up after the 911 dispatcher asked me if we needed an ambulance even after me just telling her a minute prior that there was a horrific crash with probable fatalities.
They got the guy out of there and took him away, apparently he didnt die but he was in bad shape, he had a head injury that made one side of his body numb from what I overheard on the radio.
The cops asked us questions and told us they would call us if he died to ask us more questions.
I just felt so helpless there in the darkness and rain looking at this sillouhette with nothing I could do to fix the problem.
I dont think theres much you can do to be ready to react to something like that.
People need to know their limits in the rain, especially in Southern California
Last friday a friend and I were coming back from S.D. at around 1 am, it had been raining for the past hour or so and the roads were slick. It never rains in southern california so there was a good amount of dust and oil on the road floating up.
We get off the freeway onto a 6 lane straight road when ahead coming from the opposite direction I see a fullsize pickup truck sliding sideways from his left lane to the right lane, very fast, i tell my friend "whoa whoa look!" and the truck flys into a median seperating the road we are on to the onramp for the freeway, the curb spins the truck around and unfortunately it hits a traffic signal pole right smack in the passenger side, the force perfectly perpendicular to the truck.
The force was so brutal that this enormous pole bent, sparks flew, and two of the three traffic signals on this pole go flying in my direction with debris going everywhere. I was the only car on the road to see this, I slam to a stop and immediately dial 911 as my buddy darts from the car to the other side of the road, I follow, and a car that was apparently somewhere behind this truck just cruises through the accident scene at like 45 and hits one of the traffic signals which then nearly hit me, and then keeps on going.
We get to this truck and it is easily the worst thing I have ever seen, its a chevy 1500 extended cab and the engine bay is at a 90 degree to the rest of the truck, the light pole has nearly sliced it in half, its literally foot or two away from the drivers side door which was bowed out, and jammed, the window on that door did not break so all we could see was the sillouhette of a person inside, as im talking to 911 my buddy is trying to open the door, the truck is still running making a sound I will never forget in my life, it was just chugging probably at like 1500 rpm , shooting sparks and smokes from underhood.
There is no response from the person we can see, my immediate thought is that he was for sure dead. The pole was literally pushing him into the door.
I notice the base sticker on the truck and know its a Marine, my buddy and I are Marines and we were heading to his base which was right up the street. I didnt want to see someone I may have known dead.
Finally some other jarheads pull over to help and we all start yanking on the door, about this time we hear a sound from inside like a "ohhh" and we look at eachother and could not believe this guy was alive, we manage to yank the door open and inside there was an older marine who was really messed up bad, his right leg was like a pretzel, he had a dent in his cranium, and was bleeding from somewhere. The inside of the truck was crushed in every single area up to about a 2 feet from the drivers door, you could see the pole plain as day right next to where this guys head was.
The ignition key would not cut the truck off and it was still chugging and smoking, I was afraid it was going to catch fire or something so I grabbed a pole and tried jamming up the crank hoping it would cause it to stall. It wasnt working and just adding sparks so I stopped. Meanwhile another guy that came up to help was trying to extract this guy from the truck, I didnt think that was such a good idea at the time, it didnt seem like there was an imminent explosion or fire about to happen. He moved him a few inches and you could just see his leg wiggle around like it was a rope.
So I just tried talking to the guy to keep him from going into shock, he was completely dazed out of his mind, I asked him the same questions over and over, like what his name was, and he eventually answered "charles" and then I tried asking him about where he worked, trying to get a common bond between us but he was not coherent. Another guy asked if there was anyone with him and for some reason he nodded, I then looked carefully inside and the truck was so crushed i honestly could not tell if there was anyone else in there. If there was they were paste.
Eventually the fire department showed up after the 911 dispatcher asked me if we needed an ambulance even after me just telling her a minute prior that there was a horrific crash with probable fatalities.
They got the guy out of there and took him away, apparently he didnt die but he was in bad shape, he had a head injury that made one side of his body numb from what I overheard on the radio.
The cops asked us questions and told us they would call us if he died to ask us more questions.
I just felt so helpless there in the darkness and rain looking at this sillouhette with nothing I could do to fix the problem.
I dont think theres much you can do to be ready to react to something like that.
People need to know their limits in the rain, especially in Southern California
