Hugh nodded.
“You’re a big deal, you know,” Janssen said. “We had a briefing over that. I’d say pretty much every state police officer in the Western United States would like to buy you a beer, or a cup of coffee.”
“Imagine you showing up on my beat, and being in an accident like this,” the trooper said.
“Yeah, my lucky day. Not exactly how I was expecting to finish up today.”
“Don’t worry. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there’s no way they are going to be able to pin this on you. Plenty of witnesses have testified what happened, and you’ve got recorded proof.”
Trooper Janssen asked Jenny to step down from the cab, and he gently asked her to relate her version of what happened. She told the trooper the sun was in her eyes for much of the time, but her story was virtually identical to Hugh’s.
“It is so sad,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Janssen finished with his note-taking, and handed Hugh his business card. “We’ll be in touch.”
The highway patrol part of his post-crash duties taken care of, Hugh then had to turn to taking care of the trucking company part of his responsibilities.
Dispatch was instantly aware something had happened because of the hard-brake alert they had received over Hugh’s Qualcomm system, and the fact the large screen in dispatch showing where every truck in the system was at any given time showed Hugh’s truck stopped in the middle of the I-10 Freeway.
His dispatcher, Gloria, had called Hugh, who had told her briefly what had happened.
Hugh had to call his company’s safety officer to start the accident-reporting process, and call road service to get his truck towed to the nearest Freightliner dealer for repairs.
He also called his carrier’s insurance company to inform them of the accident. He had taken photos of the front end of his truck for the insurance company’s records. But he was sorry to report to them the police had confiscated the dashcam’s micro card chip that would completely exonerate him from culpability for the accident.
Hugh told the claims associate the information from the dashcam recording would show he slowed down to try to give the woman a chance to get her car into his lane.
The claims associate told him, “Not a problem,” they will get a copy of the recording when they order the police report of the incident.
Damage to the front end of his truck was disproportionate to what had happened to the car he had T-boned. He had never seen a car explode in an accident like that; and he had seen a lot of accidents in his fifteen years on the open road.
It took several more hours for the knot of emergency vehicles to clear out, and for the highway to be cleaned up enough for the tow truck to get in there, and to hook up to Hugh’s truck. A considerable amount of car-part debris was scattered on the highway, as well as spilled gasoline that had spewed out along the highway during the rollover. Cleanup involved guys in hazmat suits.
Hugh and Jenny gathered together as much as they could from the sleeper of Hugh’s truck for an extended stay in a hotel while his truck was being repaired. They packaged up Hugh’s refrigerated and frozen items as best they could, and planned to make sure they would get a hotel room with a fridge/freezer.
He wasn’t about to give up his mom’s homemade frozen dinners.
“What’s one of the best hotels near the Freightliner dealer?” Hugh had asked the tow driver.
“I’m going to be taking your truck to the dealer in Chandler, and we’ll be going right past the South Mountain Resort and Spa. It’s a bit pricey, but you asked for one of the best hotels, and it’s a five-star.”
Hugh looked at Jenny, who nodded.
“Thanks, can you drop us off there?”
“I wish I could,” he said. “But towing your truck and trailer behind my big rig doesn’t give me much maneuverability. I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the entrance to that hotel. I can call you a cab. It can be here in a few minutes.”
“Thanks, go ahead and do that please. We’ve had a terrible day, and we just want to get settled in.”
It was nearing midnight by the time the cab had pulled up to the resort hotel. The immense resort grounds were bathed in soft lights. It was soothing to their eyes after driving into the harsh setting sun that afternoon and evening, and after suffering the dizzying and painful effects of all of the emergency vehicle strobe lights.
Hugh paid the cab driver, adding a generous tip, and had the cab hold while he arranged with check-in for their room.
“Do you have a reservation?” the desk clerk asked.
“No. We were in an accident. It all happened very suddenly,” Hugh said. He was so tired and stressed he didn’t care if he made any sense.
“We are pretty well booked in everything,” the desk clerk said.
Hugh and Jenny visibly slumped upon hearing this.
The clerk peered into her computer monitor screen, and began tapping on the keyboard. “Let me see what we can make available.”
“OK. We’ve got one available. It was a recent cancellation, a villa. King-size bed. Will that do?”
“That will be fine,” Hugh said. “We’ll take it.”
She took his card for payment. Hugh didn’t look at the price, and he didn’t care.
“Thank you,” she said. “The concierge service will take care of getting your things to your villa. If you will follow Raul he’ll show you where it is.”
Hugh could sense a palpable relief from Jenny, who had been standing close next to him, holding his
