Excitment Tuesday Morning!

On our way to work Tuesday morning, Julie and I got rear-ended. State Highway 75 between Hailey and Ketchum is almost always slow in the mornings. Sometimes it can take 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to travel the 11 miles. This morning, however, we were amazed at how the traffic had thinned out. We were moving along great and didn't hit our first slow-down until about 2 miles before the Ketchum Hospital. The traffic ahead of me stopped, not abruptly, or immediately. It just slowed and slowed until we were all completely stopped. I noted that the truck in front of me had an interesting chain hanging from its trailer hitch. I then glanced in the mirror and watched as the truck behind me did not slow at all. I kept thinking to myself, "He'll stop. He'll Stop," and then wham he ran into us, full force. I remember thinking that I should step off the brake as he was hitting me to let the truck move with the impact, thus absorbing some of it, but I honestly don't remember if I stepped off the brake or not. I know that while I was thinking he was going to hit me, I had my foot on the brake. He pushed us forward into the truck ahead of us, which in turn pushed into the truck ahead of it.

After the impact, which was tremendous, everything seemed to move slowly for just a moment. I looked over at Julie and she was physically fine. There were no obvious injuries. There was glass everywhere, and it took me a moment or two to realize the glass came from the rear window. I then realized that the engine was reving very high. I pushed the gas pedal to check and see if it was our engine making the high pitched noise. It was. I shut the engine off, again checked Julie, and got out of the truck.

The guys from the two other trucks were already out and started talking to me. The guy in the truck immediately ahead of me said, "Man, I saw him coming and I knew he was going to hit you! He didn't slow down or anything." The guy two trucks ahead of me was fairly dazed. I noticed the guy in the truck behind was still in the truck. I went back to him and couldn't get his door open. I hollered and asked if he was OK. He said he was and so I left to go around to Julie's side of the truck.

The only word that describes her is loopy. She was dazed, confused and nearly at tears. I was amazed how quickly the fire department was on the scene. It seemed like only a few minutes before they were there directing traffic, cleaning the site, and checking us.

They got the truck in the rear's door open, as it turns out, it was Jim Stewart from Carey 1st Ward. He was apologetic and concerned. He said that he was driving along and something had fallen onto the floor. He reached to get it and when he looked up, there we were.

It was obvious that Julie was very, very disoriented. The fireman asked her if she knew her name? She replied she wasn't sure. He asked her if she knew where she was? She said she was in a wreck. He asked, do you know where? She said no. She asked me a couple times what had happened.

The firemen put a neck brace on her, put her on a back board and took her to the ambulance. I had to make them let me go with her, they were going to leave me on site.

Suffice it to say - she appears to have had no head trauma. I am still not sure something didn't hit her head. She was seriously confused. The inside of the truck cab was completely amazing. We had Julie's charger for her phone sitting on the dash board. It was shattered into a bunch of little pieces. Our map book, which was sitting behind Julie's seat, was up on the dash board. Everything was scattered about and covered with bits of glass.

We had our seat belts on and that is the only reason we didn't face plant into the steering wheel in my case and the windshield in Julie's case. Oddly enough, the truck we were pushed into was a tall 4x4. His bumper hit our grill and not our bumper. With all that impact, our air bags did not deploy at all.

We are glad to be safe - though a little sore and we are especially glad there were no serious or permanent injuries to any of the five people involved.