Watch: Samaritans Rush To Help Man After His Truck Flips Over on Interstate
Nobody seems to like Mondays, and there are memes galore to prove it. But unless your name is Orlando Hernandez, your Monday probably wasn’t all that bad.
Still, Hernandez’s Monday could have been much worse — and one look at the footage a news helicopter captured will tell you why.
On July 22, at around 6:45, Hernandez was driving to work on I-88 in Illinois. The traffic was moving at a pretty good clip until the back tire of Hernandez’s truck started to disintegrate.
As soon as that happened, the 32-year-old knew he was in trouble.
“I already knew what was going to happen,” Hernandez told the Chicago Tribune. “One, I’m going to get hurt real badly; two, I gotta brace for impact.”
The entire thing was filmed by Chopper 7HD, according to WLS-TV, and the clip shows the truck spinning out of control, hitting the divider, nearly hitting passing cars and ending flipped upside-down.
“Insane. Insane,” the driver said. “You would think that you only see that in Hollywood movies.”
Thankfully, Hernandez was awake and aware, and was able to keep his wits about him despite the terrifying wreck he’d just experienced.
“After everything was settled and done, I just remember thinking, ‘OK, OK, I’m alive, I’m conscious, I’m still breathing,'” he said. “Now the only thing is, how am I going to get out of this situation?”
Amazing stuff. Over a dozen people ended up rushing over to help a pickup driver who overturns on a busy highway in Illinois. Remember the good that exists in America, it far outweighs the evil. This is what America is all about. pic.twitter.com/ayvWBNCojP
— Nick Short ?? (@PoliticalShort) July 23, 2019
He didn’t have to wait long. People began parking their vehicles along the shoulder or near Hernandez’s flipped truck and rushing over to assess the driver and figure out what to do.
As the group of good Samaritans moved the truck onto its side, another truck pulled up behind the flipped vehicle, and Tom Meyers, a firefighter, got out and ran over.
“Anytime you see something like that happen, you always … have that urge to help,” he told WLS-TV. “At that point, I knew we had to get the windshield and try to cut the seat belt.”
As it turned out, several of the good Samaritans were construction workers, and they were able to provide the necessary tools to free Hernandez. While the firefighter cautioned the driver to stay put, Hernandez wanted out. Immediately.
“He said, ‘I want to get out,'” the firefighter said. “I said we should probably wait for the fire department to show up, and that’s when he proceeded to jump out the window.”
“He was grateful, he was lucky,” Meyers continued. “He said I’m lucky to be alive after that happened, it was crazy. I said yeah, but I’m glad you’re OK.”
Hernandez was transported to a hospital, where doctors determined that — other than getting a bit scraped up — Hernandez was in good shape and hadn’t broken anything. The truck was totaled, but Hernandez learned something.
“It just shows you that there’s still good people out there,” he said. “I just want to thank the people that helped me out, if they hear the story and they remember. Thank you. Thank you to all of them for being my guardian angels.”
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