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IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
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Highway Angels
Professional truck drivers Kyle Fitzgerald, Paul Hopson, William
Lyons, and Steve Marcy have been named Highway Angels by the
Truckload Carriers Association for performing heroic actions while on
the job.
Fitzgerald and Lyons, professional truck drivers with Smokey Point
Distributing, were honored for their orchestrated efforts to divert traffic
away from a disabled vehicle in the middle of a busy interstate.
It was just after noon on Sept. 19, 2019, and Fitzgerald and Lyons
were traveling through Michigan on Interstate 75 with a set of airplane
wings destined for Toronto. Lyons was carrying one wing and Fitzgerald
followed with the second. They were accompanied by four pilot
vehicles. The first pilot was traveling a quarter mile ahead of the team.
As the pilot came over a slight hill, he radioed the team that there was
a two-vehicle accident ahead. A small car was stopped in the middle
lane and a box truck was pulled over to the right shoulder. The pilot
driver instructed the team to move to the left lane and shoulder. As the
pilot driver slowed and went around the accident. he noticed the driver
was still in the vehicle and no one was stopping to help.
Lyons and Fitzgerald decided they should stop. The team would
later learn that the accident had happened less than a minute before
they arrived. The small car had rear-ended the box truck. “Traffic had
not even begun to slow down around the wreck,” shared Fitzgerald.
“We pulled to the left shoulder, short of the accident scene.”
“People were flying by,” recalled Lyons. “There was debris all over
the road and because of the location, it was a bigger accident just
waiting to happen. Kyle’s two pilot drivers turned on their overhead
directional lights to move traffic around the accident and then helped
direct traffic,” said Lyons. “My two pilot drivers and I went to check
on the drivers as Kyle called 911.”
Within minutes, the ambulance and fire department were on
scene. When the state patrol officers arrived, they shut down the
highway long enough for the team to safely leave the scene. “According
to my logbook, our total time on the scene was 12 minutes,” said
Fitzgerald, adding that at no time were the loads in the flow of traffic
or in harm’s way. Both men credit their pilot teams for the way they
handled the situation: Veronica Nutt and Steve Sanders with T&H Pilot
Car Services of Verden, Oklahoma; Larry Morris with S.J. Pilot Car
Service of West Memphis, Arkansas; and Mike Froncisz with Veteran
Pilot Services Ltd. of Ontario, Canada.
“The Lord used us that day to make sure nobody else got hurt,”
shared Lyons.
Hopson, a professional truck driver with Stone Trucking Co., was
honored for stopping to help a seriously injured motorist found sitting
outside his vehicle on the side of the roadway.
Hopson was just outside Waco, Texas, on Highway 6, a major highway.
It was about 5 p.m. on Sept. 20, 2019, and traffic was backed up
for over half a mile.
KYLE FITZGERALD
WILLIAM LYONS
“There was a lot of CB chatter about a guy sitting outside his
pickup on the side of the road, bleeding,” shared Hopson. “I get up
there and there must have been hundreds of cars and trucks (that
time of day) and everyone just passed him up.” Without hesitation,
Hopson pulled over. “A lady pulled over behind me. Turned out she
was a former EMT,” he said. “The guy looked like he must have
been sitting there quite a while, in the heat, and people just passed
by.” The man was still conscious and bleeding heavily from what
appeared to be a gunshot wound to the face. Hopson called 911
and then gave the phone to the woman to explain the situation to
the dispatcher.
“She looked in the cab and said, ‘gun’ and we both stepped back.
There was a gun sitting on the floorboard.” Within a matter of minutes,
two or three police cars arrived along with two ambulances and
a fire truck. “They loaded him into the ambulance right away.”
Hopson called the Waco Police Department a couple days later
and learned the driver had passed away. “I kept thinking about him,”
shared Hopson. “I had just wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. It’s
bad enough when a person passes away, but when they’re in a situation
like that and they’re alone, that’s a hard way to go. Nobody would
stop, they only talked about it (on the CB).”
Hopson has driven professionally for more than 30 years. He’s
come across many accidents and has stopped to help when he can.
Marcy, a professional truck driver with ABF Freight System, Inc.,
was honored for stopping to help at the scene of a collision between
a tractor-trailer and passenger van.
It was a cold and blustery November day and Marcy was southbound
from Indiana on his way to Nashville, Tennessee. The blowing
snow was limiting visibility and the roadway was becoming icy with
the temperature below zero. Already driving well under the posted
speed limit, the poor visibility forced Marcy to slow to a stop.
That’s when he saw a tractor-trailer up ahead of him, sitting
across both southbound lanes. The driver had lost control and a fullsize
passenger van had hit the side of the trailer. Acting swiftly, Marcy
set his brakes, turned on his flashers, and rushed to the scene. The
driver of the van was disoriented, and his wife was in the passenger
seat, unconscious. The driver of the truck came over to check on the
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