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Posted on 06/07/2007 2:12:49 PM PDT by Pete-R-Bilt
Man in wheelchair takes ride on semi's grill
Updated: June 7, 2007 02:30 PM MDT
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| Pictures are courtesy State Police Trooper Mark Kassuba |
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Listen to the 911 calls about the wheelchair attached to the semi truck
PAW PAW -- The Michigan State Police Paw Paw Post and Van Buren County Central Dispatch began receiving strange reports of a man in a wheelchair being pushed by a semi truck on Wednesday afternoon.
The truck collided with wheelchair as the vehicle was leaving a gas station and 22-year-old Ben Carpenter of Alamo was crossing the road. The wheelchair's handles became lodged in the front grill of the truck. The unwitting truck driver then proceeded to travel west on Red Arrow Highway at speeds of approximately 50 mph.
Police initially thought the report might have been a prank until they started receiving more reports of the situation.
The truck traveled for an estimated four miles unknowingly pushing the man in the wheelchair. The driver then pulled into the Ralph Moyle Trucking Company, which owned the truck, with wheelchair and Carpenter still attached. When troopers arrived, they discovered Carpenter in the wheelchair was unharmed and unfazed by the incident.
Police approached the driver and advised him of the man in the wheelchair. The driver did not believe them until he stepped out of the truck and saw Carpenter still sitting in the chair.
Carpenter said, "It was quite a ride."
One trooper on the scene said, "You could work another 90 years in law enforcement and never see something like this."
Everybody said they are just glad no one was injured.
One day after his harrowing ride, Carpenter is telling the story he will never forget. He says he wasn't convinced he was going to make it before the smoking tires on the motorized wheelchair finally gave out.
"I was probably thinking that this is going to keep going and not stop anywhere, 50 or 60 miles somewhere," he told 24 Hour News 8. "What if I end up in South Haven? I mean, I would have been dead way before that."
My husband was in a hotel in Seattle, when he looked down and saw this street person amputee on one of those boards on wheels, push himself out into the middle of traffic and just sit there, waiting to be hit. My husband started yelling, but was so high up that no one could hear him. By the time he got down the elevator, the guy had been hit and people were gathering around, trying to blame the driver.
well OK.
If you had read any of the posts though, you’d have been touched by the selflessness of poat 19
so there
I was VERY touched!!! Heck I was touched by the whole THING!
glock’s been talking to you again, hasn’t he?
:)
am unloading the 320 pictures I took, then will unload hers...
haven’t talked to anyone up here all week...
THAT sounds like fun!!! I’m glad the two of you got to have a mini-vacation!!
it was therapy for both of us...
I can only imagine........
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