That sudden braking maneuver of the second car, still not all the way into Hugh’s lane, put her at an angle right in the path of Hugh’s truck, which was now bearing down on her. Collision guaranteed.
Jenny screamed.
Hugh shouted, “No!” and then his truck slammed violently into the car being driven by the woman, and caught her vehicle in a high-speed, angled T-bone. The force of the collision lifted the woman’s car off the pavement, and it began a series of side-to-side and end-over-end rollovers. Car parts were thrown from the car all over the highway. Liquid spewed from the car’s trunk, saturating the car and spilling out onto the pavement.
Hugh hit his four-ways, and brought his truck to a hard-brake stop. The woman’s car finally came to rest upside down on the right shoulder. As Hugh and Jenny watched in horror, the woman’s car burst into flames – virtually an explosion, a huge fireball that engulfed the whole car. It was as bad as anything Hugh had seen in the Middle East.
“Nobody could have lived through that,” Hugh said.
Jenny was crying uncontrollably with loud sobs.
Craning to look ahead, trying to shield his eyes from the sun that was now low and directly in front of them, and also having his view partially blocked by the smoke from the burning car, Hugh could see the first car, apparently unscathed, driving away, disappearing into the setting sun. The driver was obviously unconcerned about the horrible crash he had caused.
Chapter Sixteen
“If this dashcam works as advertized I should have a good recording of the crash,” Hugh told the Arizona state trooper. “The whole thing lasted only a few seconds, and it was recording the whole time.”
Hugh handed his dashcam to the trooper, name of Janssen, with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the state’s name for its highway patrol that Hugh could see on the patrol car’s door decal.
Emergency vehicles were wall-to-wall and two deep across westbound Interstate 10. Red and blue strobes flashing from every vehicle created a kaleidoscope of bright lights.
Hugh’s truck had come to rest in a diagonal across the first three lanes, blocking traffic coming west upon the accident scene in those lanes. Traffic had slowed to a crawl on the outer two lanes as “Looky-Lous” craned their heads to get a glimpse of the tragic spectacle. Then, as soon as emergency personnel began to converge on the location, the whole of westbound 10 had been shutdown across all five lanes.
The trooper and Hugh stood next to Hugh’s truck. Janssen played back the recording to view the accident on the dashcam’s little two-inch screen.
“Uh-huh. That’s pretty much what the other witnesses described,” the trooper said.
“Hey, Rodriguez,” the trooper yelled over at a nearby trooper, “Bring your laptop over here, and one of those micro card adapters.”
Rodriguez handed Trooper Janssen what he had requested, and then recorded on his bodycam Janssen removing the micro card from the dashcam, inserting it into the adapter, inserting the adapter into the laptop’s card reader and copying the recording onto the laptop’s hard drive.
Janssen then placed the micro card into an evidence baggie, annotated it, signed it and sealed it. Trooper Rodriguez had recorded the whole process.
“For evidence. I’m afraid we’ll have to keep your chip. Recording this process is for chain-of-custody purposes. We’re not taking any chances with an accident of this magnitude,” Janssen said. “Some mega lawsuits are going to be coming out of this one.”
The trooper looked at the WestAm Trucking logo on the door of Hugh’s cab. “And I’m afraid you and your trucking company are going to be ground zero for every shyster lawyer who tries to get a piece of this. Could be as many as four fatalities.”
The trooper turned so his bodycam was pointing at Hugh, and retrieved a notebook and pen from a pocket of his jacket.
“OK. It’s evident what happened here, but I need a statement from you in your own words.”
Hugh related what he had seen. He told the trooper it all happened so fast. He was keeping a good following distance, and then those two cars swerved into his lane all but cutting him off. The driver of the first car had jammed on his brakes.
“You think it was a him?”
“That’s my impression from seeing who the driver was who had swerved into my lane from my left side.”
Hugh went on to say he had slowed down to give the second car a chance to complete her lane change.
“You think the second car was being driven by a woman?”
Hugh looked at him. “You couldn’t tell? I could see her clearly as she came in right in front of my truck.”
“Well, no. The fire destroyed everything and everybody. All identification was burned in the fire. It will take a forensic autopsy to determine who was in that car. We know there was a driver, and we think there was a passenger in the front seat. Male or female, we can’t tell yet about either of them. We suspect from some melted plastic and metal that two child car seats were in the back.”
The trooper looked up into Hugh’s cab. He could see Jenny sitting in her seat, her hands over her face, still crying.
“Is your lady OK?” he asked. “I’ll have to get her name and her version of the story too.”
“She’s really shook up. Can you wait a bit?” Hugh said.
Then Hugh told the trooper about the first driver who had sped up and disappeared after causing this horrendous accident.
“With any luck you might be able to pull the license plate, and the make and model of the car from my dashcam footage,” Hugh said.
“By the way,” Janssen said. “Your name
