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A 484 Story: The Gardener
You can squeeze a full-sized pickup truck into a space that’s about three feet wide, well most of it anyway. This is the story about someone who managed to accomplish this feat.
On one side of the sidewalk there was state highway sign that stood about 15 feet above the pavement. That sign was supported by a metal stanchion that was about 2.5 feet in diameter, and secured by eight bolts attached to a metal plate on the sidewalk. On the other side of the sidewalk was a concrete retaining wall about four feet tall, and topped with an arborvitae hedge.
The truck had crossed at least two lanes of traffic before the driver wedged it between the stanchion and the retaining wall. The hood of the truck was pointed in the wrong direction. The truck came to a final stop at the bed of the truck. There was no radio call about the accident. My partner and I knew that it must have happened just before we arrived in the area.
We got out of the car to see if the driver had survived. The cab was empty. I checked underneath the truck to make sure that a pedestrian hadn’t been struck. My partner and I split up to make sure that a pedestrian hadn’t been hit further down the sidewalk. No bodies, that’s good. No bodies between the truck and the retaining wall.
We did notice that there was cut-out in the hedge, about the size of a human being. So we checked the other side of the hedge. Somebody had been there; the grass, not to mention the hedge was torn up a bit. We went back to the truck and were approached by a person who asked us if we were looking for the driver. “We are,” my partner said. He informed us that the driver walked into the tavern across the street. He had probably been in another tavern earlier in the evening which is how his truck ended being squeezed between a stanchion and a retaining wall.
There were about ten patrons in the tavern. Being trained observers it only took us a moment to find our subject. His hair and beard were entwined with pieces of arborvitae. We approached the booth that he was sitting in. He had a pitcher of beer, and one glass on the table in front of him. My partner asked him what he would like us to do with his truck. His reply was that it wasn’t his truck. We handcuffed him, and retrieved his ID. The name on his driver’s license and the name on the truck’s registration paperwork matched. Another mystery solved.
He had been thrown through the open driver’s window upon impact, and managed to clear the retaining wall. Except for the DUI arrest, he was a very lucky man that night. He didn’t kill anyone else or himself.
Published in Policing
My brother had one where the guy was doing over a hundred on the highway. Brother backed off so as not to get anyone killed. Drunk took the next exit without slowing down. He lost control, and the car disintegrated around him. They found him sitting there, totally unhurt, wondering what had happened to his car. He had apparently been so loose because of the booze, that he wasn’t hurt in the slightest bit.
You’re shaking my faith in Celestial Justice!!
Back in the 70s the Pittsburgh Steelers had a punter that crashed his car and his girlfriend died. When the police arrived he reached in his car and grabbed a pint of whiskey and gulped it down. He claimed he hadn’t been drinking until after the crash. He got away with it. He has a son kicking in the NFL now. I am surprised your guy didn’t try something like that.
I thought most highway signs were breakaways now, to prevent such things.
This was one of the billboard sized highway signs.
Probably had the same Driver’s Ed instructor that taught Ted Kennedy how to drive. By the way that’s why you get a warrant for a blood draw. The blood draw can determine the level of intoxication, and whether a driver was on the way up, had been intoxicated and leveled out, or on the way down.
I don’t remember all the particulars but for what ever reason none of that happened in this case. Of course it wasn’t much later when another Steeler went crazy and took shoots at a police chopper and lived to talk about it.
Policemen and ER docs have the best stories!
Back in the 70s a blood test just gave BAC; the technology available (I don’t think the basic science was there yet either) couldn’t give the kind of information @dougwatt is describing.