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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 53 - New GMC - Class C Refer ... to Forest Hill (Baltimore), MD Trip 53b - Used car ... from Providence, RI to China (Augusta), ME Trip 53c - '94 Used Freightliner - Flatbed ... from Londonerry (Boston), NH This trip is supposed to start Tuesday about noon, I have to wait for someone to bring my truck this far ... shouldn't be a problem, the first leg of my trip is about a day and a half ... 8/25/04 Driver never showed until after 4 PM ... so I took the truck as far as my house and left Wednesday morning ... that's why there are no 'plans' in this line of work, only 'possibilities.' This is the time of the day I like to leave (from my house) ... 8 AM ... no dealing with dispatch, other drivers ... and I'm running against any traffic, and I'm early enough that I will clear Chicago before rush hour and be off the highway before dark. I had known Monday that I was leaving on this run Tuesday so I had spent a lot of time checking maps, motels, cars, the bus and I was ready to go ... by Tuesday night I had spent the day just waiting and by evening we heard that a local teen had died from a car crash ... (Story) ... tends to get a guy thinking of all the stuff we see on the highway. This one was another drivers fault ... Next week in MN they are dedicating something to a highway patrol killed by a truck while he was on the side of the road ... WI is running radio ads of a highway patrol that was hit while on the side of the road ... yet every trip I see dozens if not hundreds of people stopping to do things that could have waited to the next exit ... if they'd realize it could be a matter of life and death they'd wait ... Last week I went past a guy on the side of the road, he was under the vehicle with his legs laying out in the lane of traffic ... this week I see someone pull to the shoulder (barely) to get out of their car, when they opened their door it was in the lane of traffic while you almost could have driven another car between them and the shoulder of the road ... and I've got the next 4 - 5,000 miles to think about it. Within in the first hundred miles I see something I've never seen before ... a dead bear on the side of the road ... deer, coon's, skunks ... by the hundreds, but never a bear before. Traffic into Chicago is not too bad ... I-80 / I-90 is still a mess but no major delays ... Good thing I picked up my truck last night instead of trying to head out early this AM, driver brought it in on 'E' ... and no place local to get propane in the off hours ... I'd have been up early and ... waiting. Dual tanks on this truck so only one propane stop today ... S Beloit, IL ... Flying J. Plan is to make it to Toledo today, 650 miles ... and a cheep motel. Motel 6 is $33, Howard Johnson and Knights in are both $39, but I found a coupon for the motel across the freeway from the Knights in ... $29 for the Stony Ridge Inn .... only problem is I couldn't find the office so after twice around the block I left and got a room for $31 at the Budget motel. Nice ma / pa place ... clean, even the sheets looked brand new, only thing out of place was there were a few left over bathroom wall tiles in the closet. Some truck parking but he wanted to save that for his 'car transport' trucks, 'bout a half dozen of them by morning ... had noticed that before at this place. I was shut down by 6 so I'd be ready to go by 4 ... AM ... got nervous that the Flying J wouldn't have anyone on duty who could pump propane at that time of the morning so I went and fueled ... and got some bacon and eggs for myself. 8/26/04 Left a message yesterday for my drop location but did not hear anything back, plan is to get in around 3 PM ... that gives me about eight hours driving today. I-80 ... seen it all before ... I don't know where any propane dealers are on I-76 in PA so I stay on I-80 to Youngstown / Hubbard, OH ... I may have been able to make it without another fuel stop, but I don't like bringing these things in on 'E' ... this trip it would have saved me a couple of hours though ... Good thing I didn't need a tankful ... they only had a few gallons left and the wouldn't get a fill for a couple of hours. Came back out from paying for my fuel and there were a couple of guys standing by it wondering if it was stocked (with frozen goods) ... nope, it's not. Got to talking to them a bit ... they work for Bennett and were moving a couple of RV's down to a show ... maybe we don't get paid to bad ... beats $.30 cents per mile ... which I've also heard from other drivers. The two drivers didn't seem to know each other and by chance had stopped at the same station ... also picked up from them a different short cut ... I had looked at it on a map but wasn't sure about the road ... US 20 / US 220 ... but these guys had done the route before and it was their 'shortest route' so I decided to go for it. Or try to ... I don't carry a map anymore so I had to remember and guess as to where to turn ... wrong on the first, bad at the second ... I end up going a couple of miles out of my way ... I do remember what major highways are on all sides so the only way I really get lost is to go in circles ... I finally stop at a rest area ... just in time, it's the next exit I want to take (seeing I've already missed my original exit) ... and I see a short-cut ... :) ... I find the short-cut and go a few miles before I see a sign that says ... 'Truck detour' ... I was under the weight limit for the detour but I followed it ... ended up being about 10 miles more than not having taken the short-cut ... Somewhere about now I start getting little flashbacks that I may have been this route before ... but after a few thousand miles a lot of places start looking the same ... and there is road construction that is changing the landscape daily, going from a narrow, hilly two lane highway to a well graded four-lane ... finally I pass the exit ... I was running with another driver and we did drop here ... about six weeks ago ... wow, I had to look it up, I would have guessed six months ... it was with my drop to Horsehead, NY. Phone service in this part of PA is lousy if at all ... I've tried to call dispatch a few times ... even stopped, I can have a full signal and by the time dispatch comes on the line they can't hear me, signal is gone. This also means I haven't talked to my drop yet ... finally call him where I think I'm about 20 miles out ... He's in, but guesses I'm about an hour and a half out. It's all narrow two lane from here, no passing zones, no shoulders. Somehow I manage to loose the state road I was on but figure I will hit I-95 if I go too far ... (I really need to look at these maps closer ... all the info) ... and I know what cross highway I'm looking for ... NOOOO!!! ... This place is all to familiar ... I find the cross highway ... and remember that LAST TIME I thought I was lost and turned on this crossroad and got stayed lost for another hour ... again, it was with another driver and it seems like forever ago. Now that I know where I am, I don't take the wrong turn again ... I drop the truck at almost 3 PM ... but, could have been hours ago ... or yesterday. He had offered to take me to BWI / Baltimore airport ... Leg 2 - Trip 53b - Used car ... from Providence, RI to China (Augusta), ME (Story) Funeral services planned for Good Samaritan Updated: 08/28/2004 10:30:30 PM Funeral services are planned for Thursday and Friday for Casey Schluessler, the Good Samaritan teenager who died trying to help a stranded driver. There will be a visitation from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Caturia-Smidt Funeral Home in Hastings. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Friday. Memorial Fund for Casey Joe Schluessler: Vermillion State Bank 975 Lyn Way Hastings, MN 55033 Contact: April Jorgensen at 651-437-4433 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A teenager who became pinned under a car after he stopped to help a stranded motorist has died at Hennepin County Medical Center. Casey Joe Schluessler, 17, of Hastings, died about 11 p.m. Monday. The teenager was injured Sunday after he stopped to help a woman who was changing a flat tire on the shoulder of westbound Interstate 94, just east of downtown Minneapolis. He was removing a spare tire from beneath the woman's Ford Explorer when a Honda smashed into the Explorer from behind. The Honda landed on the teenager and pinned the Explorer's owner, Mariana Duran Mateo, against the concrete median. Within minutes, other motorists stopped to help. About a dozen men and women lifted the Honda off Schluessler. They also freed Duran Mateo, 47, of Minneapolis, who had broken legs and pelvic bones. Duran Mateo's condition was upgraded to satisfactory Monday. About 20 relatives of Schluessler and family friends held an emotional news conference Monday evening to show their support. They said it wasn't the first time he had stopped to help someone change a tire. "I just wanted to really say thank you to all those wonderful people who helped Casey right after the accident," said his mother, Barb Schluessler. "I want to thank people for the all the prayers." The teenager had a severe brain injury, a broken arm and burns over most of his body. One of the rescuers, Mike Thompson, said the group didn't realize at first that anyone was trapped under the Honda. "I got there and saw the woman pinned in the median and thought that we'd help her and that would be it," he said. Then the rescuers saw an arm. Realizing there was a second victim, people began yelling for someone to pull the boy out from under the car. "Don't move him," Thompson yelled. "His arm was broken," he said. "If we would have moved him it would have come right off." Officials praised the rescuers for putting themselves at risk. "It was heroic when they lifted the Honda off that guy," said Lt. Paul VanVoorhis, who responded to the scene. "They were black and white and brown, men and women. Creed, color, religion or race didn't matter. It was just one citizen helping another." The Honda driver had apparently swerved onto the shoulder to avoid hitting cars that were slowing down and she didn't see the Explorer until it was too late, State Patrol spokesman Kevin Smith said. Investigators were trying to pinpoint why the 22-year-old St. Paul woman had to swerve onto the shoulder, Smith said. Officials had not decided whether to file charges. State Patrol Capt. Jay Swanson said the shoulders of Interstate highways are dangerous. He discouraged drivers from attempting to change tire there, or from stopping to help a stranded motorist. Anyone who gets a flat on a freeway should pull off to the shoulder, slow down and keep driving to the nearest exit, even if it means damaging the tire and rim, he said. If the car can't be driven, don't get out to put out flares or reflectors, he said. Stay inside, turn the emergency flashers on and wait for help. "I guarantee you, the State Patrol is going to get called about it," Swanson said. There are 12 state troopers working on the case. They hope to determine whether or not the Honda driver will be charged in 2 to 5 weeks. -------------------------------- Nearly a dozen other drivers stopped to help and literally lifted the car off of Schluessler. One of those drivers, Micheal Thompson talked to 5 Eyewitness News about the experience. "What was going through my mind was there is only so much we can do. This man is seriously hurt," Thompson said. While Thompson and others were propping up the car and comforting the victims, other passers-by directed west-bound traffic, which was still snaking around the accident scene, as the mid-day mayhem played out. “It was really a team effort and everybody was very impressive in terms of cooperating,” Thompson said. Several other vehicles, including a Metro Transit bus ended up involved in the crash. The State Patrol closed the Interstate for nearly two hours while crews worked to clear the scene. |