Elderly Man Walks Away Barely Injured from Accident That Should Have Left Him Dead
A miracle occurred in Massachusetts when a man was involved in an accident that authorities said should have killed him.
On July 16, 2019, 61-year-old Ricki Artruc was driving on Route 146 in southeastern Massachusetts when his Ford Taurus struck a piece of concrete in the middle of the road.
The collision sent Artruc’s vehicle into the air.
“You try to pay attention to what’s going on but there’s one little thing can catch you,” he told WBTS. “I did a Dukes of Hazzard.”
Once his car landed back on the ground, both the steering and the brakes stopped working so Artruc was unable to control the car as it swerved across a grassy area and toward the nearby on-ramp.
This sequence of events would be scary enough on its own, but Artruc’s harrowing journey was not yet over.
As the vehicle approached the ramp, an 18-wheeler was also travelling up the on-ramp. The sedan slid under the trailer of the big rig, almost completely to the other side.
“I could see I was coming to the tractor trailer and I knew I couldn’t stop,” Artruc said. “I had no brakes, nothing, I knew I was going to hit it.”
The 18-wheeler then dragged Artruc, still inside the vehicle “a good distance.”
The Uxbridge Fire Department later wrote on their Facebook page that Artruc was able to self-extricate himself from the vehicle through the driver-side door.
Artuc’s daughter, Jennifer Baker, commented on the fire department’s post thanking them for saving her father’s life.
“I also want to thank God for looking over him,” Baker wrote. “I am also grateful that the truck driver was uninjured.”
Once first responders arrived on scene, they sent him to the hospital to receive medical treatment but were “amazed” that he had only suffered minor injuries.
“I’m just glad to be alive,” Artruc told WBTS. “Thank God he doesn’t want me yet.”
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