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A QUICK LOOK AT MORE
IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
HIGHWAY ANGELS
PRESENTING SPONSOR:
SUPPORTING SPONSOR:
Professional truck drivers Kiel Carson, Stuart Cole, Donnell Harris Jr.,
Alex “Zay” Harrison, Robert Kravette, Timothy Sikes, and Devey South,
have been named Highway Angels by the Truckload Carriers Association
(TCA) for their acts of heroism while on the road.
For their willingness to assist fellow drivers as motorists, TCA has presented
each Highway Angel with a certificate, a patch, a lapel pin, and truck
decals. Their employers have also received a certificate acknowledging
their driver as a Highway Angel.
Special thanks go to the program’s Presenting Sponsor EpicVue, and
Supporting Sponsor DriverFacts.
KIEL CARSON
Kiel Carson (not pictured), who lives in Portland, Maine, and is a driver
with Prime Inc. of Springfield, Missouri, was honored for stopping to help
at the scene of an accident after another truck slammed into a disabled
vehicle.
During his training period with Prime Inc., Carson was crossing the
Delaware Memorial Bridge at Wilmington, Delaware. It was around 3 p.m.
and traffic was fairly light when he saw a tractor-trailer to his left slam into
a disabled car that was stopped in the road. The truck had swerved to avoid
another vehicle that had made an aggressive lane change in front of it.
“The truck carried the car across my lane and into the guardrail and
came to a stop maybe 100 feet in front of me,” recalled Carson, who yelled
to his trainer, Kevin Hare (who was on his required rest break in the sleeper)
that he had just witnessed a serious accident.
“I pulled the parking brakes, checked my mirror, and jumped out,” he
said. As Carson went to check on the two vehicles, Hare called 911 and the
team’s dispatcher.
Carson first checked on the truck driver, who was dazed but didn’t appear
to be injured. He then rushed to the vehicle that had been hit. The
trunk of the sedan was crushed 6 to 12 inches behind the B pillar (the part
of the car’s frame between the front and rear doors).
Carson, who was also an EMT student, approached the driver’s side
of the car. The door was pinned shut and he couldn’t break the glass. He
could see the driver had been killed. Another motorist was trying to open
the front passenger door. Carson ran over to help as his trainer joined him.
“I asked (Hare) to go back to the truck,” said Carson. “He wanted to give
me any help he could, but there really wasn’t anything he could do, and I
didn’t want him to see this.”
Carson also asked gathering bystanders to go back to their vehicles to
clear the scene for first responders. Thankfully, the front-seat passenger
was breathing, although unresponsive.
“Then I saw a second passenger in the back seat,” recalled Carson. “He
was wedged between the back seat and the back of the front seat. I couldn’t
reach him, and had no idea what his condition was.”
When a bridge authority officer arrived on scene, Carson briefed her
on the situation as one of the bystanders continued trying to open the
passenger-side door.
“He yelled that he had gotten the door open, and the front-seat passenger
had regained consciousness,” Carson said, adding that he rushed over.
“She was screaming. I asked her where she hurt and what she could feel,
but she was unable to answer because of the pain.”
He asked the officer for any medical equipment she had.
“She handed me her medical bag and I was able to find a C (cervical
neck) collar,” he shared with TCA. He then rushed back to help the frontseat
passenger as first responders began arriving on the scene. As they
took over, Carson returned to his truck.
“We had to wait a few hours for police to perform their investigation and
extrication,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know why the car was stopped
in the middle of the road. He later learned the front-seat passenger was the
only one who survived.
STUART COLE
Stuart Cole, a resident of Jackson,
Mississippi, who drives for Taylor
Truck Line of Northfield, Minnesota,
was honored for looking after a fellow
motorist and her young daughter
as they waited for hours for a serious
multi-vehicle accident to clear ahead
of them.
Patience was the order of the day
early one morning on Interstate 80
(the Ohio Turnpike). It was around
5 a.m., and as Cole neared the Indiana
state line, traffic slowed to a stop.
STUART COLE
SEE HIGHWAY ANGELS, PAGE 44
TCA JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 WWW.TRUCKLOAD.ORG | TRUCKLOAD AUTHORITY 41