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ANGELS, FROM PAGE 43
powdery snow went up and when it settled,
they were laying on the passenger side in the
ditch. The driver wasn’t driving erratically,
but simply hit a patch of black ice under a
thin layer of snow. I pulled to the side, threw
on my hazards, and called 911.”
He then ran over to the overturned vehicle
as the driver was climbing out of the driver’s
door.
“I gave him a hand and then helped lift his
wife out,” Still shared, adding that the pair
appeared to be in their 50s and were fortunate
to walk away without any major injuries.
“She may have injured her arm because
the vehicle landed on the passenger side,” he
recalled. “It all happened so fast that I didn’t
even catch their names. I was just trying to
make sure they were OK.”
Still waited until police and EMTs arrived.
He learned the couple later called his employer
to thank him for helping them that day. He
has been driving with Hirschbach for three
years. He is also a Certified Trucker Against
Trafficking.
KIRK SZECSODI
Kirk Szecsodi, who lives in Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada, and drives for Len Dubios
Trucking of Winnipeg, was honored for his
alertness that led to successfully locating a
missing elderly man.
Fate was shining on Szecsodi the day he
saw a Silver Alert on a digital highway sign
on U.S. Highway 287 near Waco, Texas. Silver
Alerts help locate vulnerable adults who
go missing.
“It said it was an elderly man driving a
black Dodge Charger,” recalled Szecsodi. He
jotted down the vehicle make and model and
the license plate number.
“I’d always thought it’d be cool to help
find someone,” he shared.
A few hours later, he stopped at the Love’s
Truck Stop in Quanah, Texas, for his half-hour
break. “I went inside for a while and as I was
walking out the front door, this elderly man
held the door open for me,” Sxecsodi recalled.
Szecsodi thanked him and then saw the
man walk toward a black Dodge Charger. He
says the license plate number rang a bell. He
ran back inside and grabbed a piece of paper.
“I only got part of the license plate number,”
he said. “But I thought that might be the guy.”
After getting back in his truck, Szecsodi
saw that the license plate number
matched what he had taken down earlier.
“That was the guy,” he exclaimed when
KIRK SZECSODI
CALVIN AND COREY WILLIAMS
recounting the day. “I called the police and
told them I had seen him in a black Charger
heading toward Amarillo.”
The police called him back about 20 minutes
later to thank him and said they found
the man and he was safe. Szecsodi is still in
disbelief about his luck.
“It’s incredible that the very person on the
Silver Alert was standing right there holding
the door for me! That was the most bizarre
part,” he said adding he’s relieved that things
worked out well.
CALVIN AND COREY WILLIAMS
Calvin and Corey Williams, twin brothers
who live in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and
drive for Armellini Express Lines of Palm
City, Florida, were honored for rushing to
the aid of a couple whose vehicle veered off
the road and into a steep ravine, crashing
into a tree.
Around 4 a.m. on February 21, Calvin was
on Interstate 44 near Bristow, Oklahoma,
when a vehicle passed him at a high rate of
speed; then veered off the road and disappeared
down a steep embankment. Corey
was in the sleeper. They also had a trainee,
Allen Ford, with them. Calvin safely applied
the brakes and woke up Corey as he quickly
pulled over and directed Allen to put the reflectors
out behind the truck.
They called 911, rushed to the edge of the
road, and peered down into a wooded ravine.
“It was pitch black out there,” recalled
Calvin, but they could see a small fire about
300 to 400 feet from the road. The team
could hear people screaming for help. Having
only the light from their cellphones
to light the way, they ran into a barbedwire
fence and climbed over it. They then
scrambled down a slick, muddy embankment.
By the time they reached the vehicle
the flames had died out.
“They hit a tree so hard it knocked the
headlights out and pushed the motor and
transmission into the cab,” said Calvin. The
windows were broken out, and the brothers
found a male passenger, conscious, laying on
the ground with a serious leg injury.
The female driver was about 30 feet from
the vehicle. “She was bleeding and shivering
and couldn’t move her legs,” shared Calvin,
adding that he suspected she had a broken
back. “She kept saying she had fallen asleep
at the wheel. She looked like she was going
into shock.”
“It was 23 degrees that night,” added Corey.
“They were cold and wet and freezing.
It was a bad situation.” One of the brothers
climbed back up to the truck to grab blankets.
Because of the area’s remote location,
it was an hour before the police arrived, and
another hour before the EMTs reached them.
“But they had no way to get down the hill and
successfully bring two people back up, especially
with their injuries,” said Corey.
One of the brothers opened a tracking app
on his phone and pulled up a detailed image
of the area. The crash scene was near an old
dirt road, but difficult to get to. It took the
EMTs another 30 minutes before they finally
reached the injured couple.
“That was a crazy night,” said Corey. “We
stayed with them for four hours until the sun
came up, with no jackets on in 23 degrees.
When we heard those sirens, it was the best
sound I’d heard all night.”
“I’m glad we stopped,” shared Calvin.
“There aren’t any houses back there. No one
would have seen them from the highway. All
I was thinking about was saving a human life.
We didn’t know what type of situation was
down there. We didn’t care.”
The brothers have been driving together
for 13 years. Calvin said he was fascinated
by semitrucks as a kid. The two decided they
wanted to become truck drivers.
“We want to be the best drivers we can
be,” Calvin said. “We do more than just drive
truck. We save lives, too.”
44 TRUCKLOAD AUTHORITY | WWW.TRUCKLOAD.ORG TCA JULY/AUGUST 2021