Truckload Authority Staff

The Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) has recognized professional truck drivers Rodney Clay, Andrew Hastie, Stephen Miller, Andre Reynolds and Devin Rhinehardt as TCA Highway Angels because of their acts of heroism while on the road. In recognition of these drivers’ willingness to help fellow drivers and motorists, TCA has presented each Highway Angel with a certificate, a lapel pin, patches, and truck decals. Their employers have also received a certificate highlighting their driver as a recipient. Since the program began in 1997, nearly 1,300 professional truck drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels because of the exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage they have displayed while on the job. TCA extends special thanks to the program’s presenting sponsor, EpicVue, and supporting sponsors DriverFacts and Northland Insurance. To nominate a driver or read more about these and other Highway Angel award recipients, visit highwayangel.org.   RODNEY CLAY: Norton Transport, Ringgold, Georgia On March 4, around 1:30 p.m., Rodney Clay who lives in Riverview, Florida, and drives for Georgia-based Norton Transport, was driving on Interstate 435 in Lawrence, Kansas, when a car about a quarter mile ahead of him crashed. “I saw a car practically in the air, flipping. Nobody was stopping,” said Clay, who is a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. “So, I pulled over about 100 yards in front of the car, off the interstate. I ran towards the car and saw it smoking and had fluid leaking.” The car, which had flipped, hit the ground, slid to the fast lane wall and crashed into the median wall, was severely damaged. When Clay reached the car, he saw that all the air bags had deployed. He couldn’t immediately tell whether anyone was in the front passenger seat. He says he lifted the passenger-side airbag, afraid of what he might see. Beneath the airbag was a young girl, who was screaming and shaking. The driver, a woman, was bleeding from her mouth. Knowing he needed more help, Clay stood in the way of traffic and stopped another truck, whose driver got out to assist. “I told the women, ‘You have to get out of this car now. It’s smoking really bad,’” Clay said. “I was afraid it was going to blow up.” The girl told her rescuers that she couldn’t feel her hips. Together, Clay and the other driver pulled her out of the vehicle and then rescued the driver, moving both far away from the smoking vehicle. The girl borrowed Clay’s phone and tried to call her father, but there was no answer. Soon, paramedics arrived, and Clay left the scene. Afterward, he says, he texted the girl’s father to tell him what happened; later that day, the father called Clay to thank him for helping his family. Clay explained why he stopped to help: As the father of six, he thinks about paying it forward. “If it happened to any of my kids, I’d want somebody to stop,” he said.   ANDREW HASTIE: Decker Truck Line, Ft. Dodge, Montana Andrew Hastie, who lives in Bryan, Texas, and drives for Montana-based Decker Truck Line, was driving south on Interstate 75 in Kennesaw, Georgia, around 2:30 p.m. on April 29, when he came upon the scene of an accident. A car was ablaze about 25 yards off the highway, in the woods. Others had already stopped to help and were attempting to put out the fire, but Hastie saw one of the rescuers pointing to a fire extinguisher, indicating that another one was needed. “My thought process at that point was, ‘I’ve gotta stop; I just can’t keep going,’” Hastie said, noting that he had a fire extinguisher with him. He pulled over, grabbed the extinguisher and ran to the burning car, where he tried unsuccessfully to open the driver’s door and get the driver out. “It was one of the worst (accidents) I’ve seen,” Hastie said. The bystanders were able to pull an injured female passenger out of the vehicle. She was eventually life-flighted to receive medical attention. Her condition is unknown. Hastie says he suspects the driver did not survive the wreck. Paramedics, fire crews and other responders arrived five or 10 minutes after Hastie stopped to help. A former volunteer police/firefighter, Hastie helped lay the fire hoses out to extinguish the flames. Looking back, he’s glad he stopped. “They needed a fire extinguisher; I had a fire extinguisher,” he said. “If I had just kept going, I would have felt like crap.”   STEPHEN MILLER: Hogan Transports, Inc., Maryland Heights, Missouri Stephen Miller of Tifton, Georgia, who drives for Missouri-based Hogan Transports, Inc., earned his Highway Angel wings after helping put out a car fire. Shortly after midnight on February 21, Miller was traveling south on Interstate 75 in Punta Gorda, Florida, when a car passed him at a high rate of speed. As they passed over a bridge near exit 164, the vehicle in front of Miller hit a dip in the road. “The guy hit the dip, and I thought he wiped out because there was a huge plume of smoke,” Miller said. “As I was coming through the smoke, I was looking for a wrecked-out vehicle.” When he spotted the vehicle, which hadn’t yet stopped, smoke was billowing out from underneath, quickly followed by flames. The driver pulled off the road. Miller pulled his truck over, grabbed his fire extinguisher and sprang into action as other vehicles passed the scene. “I jumped out, ran back there and shot the fire extinguisher underneath the car to see if I could get the fire out from there, because that’s where it was coming from,” Miller said. The fire continued to grow, however, so Miller asked the other driver to pop the hood — whereupon Miller deployed the rest of the fire extinguisher. The fire was still not out, so Miller returned to his truck and grabbed a 40-pack of bottled water. “I got the fire out with the bottles of water,” said Miller, who has been driving a truck for 10 years. He stayed by the vehicle with the driver until first responders arrived. There were no injuries to the male driver and passenger from the vehicle. “I was raised, if you see something, you help out if you can. We gotta look out for each other,” Miller said.   ANDRE REYNOLDS: Hogan Transports, Inc., Maryland Heights, Missouri On April 15, at about 1 p.m., Andre Reynolds of Phoenix, who also drives for Hogan Transports, was traveling near Utica, Mississippi, along MS27, a two-lane highway, when he noticed a Ford Mustang turning into his lane. The car was moving erratically and came almost to a stop in the lane, nearly causing a collision, before suddenly veering off the road and landing head-first in a ditch. “I was so close to hitting this dude,” Reynolds said. “I wasn’t expecting that at all!” Reynolds pulled over to check on the other driver and discovered that the man behind the wheel of the Mustang was having a seizure. “He was pretty much incoherent,” Reynolds said. Another driver stopped to help, so Reynolds asked him to call 9-1-1. Together, they waited with the driver until the seizure stopped. The man was still disoriented, but he tried to make a phone call to his father. Reynolds took the phone and explained to the man’s father what had happened. “Slowly but surely, he started to come back,” Reynolds said. Once the accident victim was alert and walking on his own, Reynolds left and continued on his way. “I wouldn’t leave somebody in a bad spot,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt to help somebody.”   DEVIN RHINEHARDT: Maverick Transportation, North Little Rock, Arkansas Devin Rhinehardt of Twinsburg, Ohio, who drives for Arkansas-based Maverick Transportation, is honored for helping another driver, who was injured and in need of medical treatment. On April 2, Rhinehardt was picking up a load from a customer in Silver Grove, Kentucky, when another driver walked into the office and asked for an ambulance. “I turn around and I saw blood just gushing out of his arm,” Rhinehardt said, who immediately called 911. “There was blood all over his arm, all over his chest — he was very badly injured.” The other driver had slipped, fallen and suffered a severe cut on one wrist. Once Rhinehardt made sure help was on the way, he ran to the guard shack to let security know emergency responders were en route. When the ambulance arrived, he led first responders to the injured man. Looking back, Rhinehardt was glad he stepped up to help. “I immediately realized that he was bleeding really bad. I wasn’t just gonna sit there and watch the man die,” Rhinehardt said. Feedback from the hospital revealed that Rhinehardt’s quick actions likely saved the other driver from bleeding out on the way to the hospital.

The Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) has recognized professional truck drivers Paul Lamoureux, Keith Rahn, Tim Olden, and Jason Corino as TCA Highway Angels because of their acts of heroism while on the road. In recognition of these drivers’ willingness to help fellow drivers and motorists, TCA has presented each Highway Angel with a certificate, a lapel pin, patches, and truck decals. Their employers have also received a certificate highlighting their driver as a recipient. Since TCA’s Highway Angels program began in 1997, nearly 1,300 professional truck drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels because of the exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage they have displayed while on the job. TCA extends special thanks to the program’s presenting sponsor, EpicVue, and supporting sponsors DriverFacts and Northland Insurance. To nominate a driver or read more about these and other Highway Angel award recipients, visit highwayangel.org. Paul Lamoureux Bison Transport — Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Paul Lamoureux of Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada, is recognized as a TCA Highway Angel for stopping to help a woman and her son following after their car crashed in the wee hours of the morning. At about 2:15 a.m. on August 25, 2023, Lamoureux was traveling along Highway 200 near Circle, Montana. A car pulled past him and continued along the highway. When the car was about a mile ahead of him, he saw the lights of the car suddenly swerve and then disappear over a hill. As Lamoureux crested the hill, he saw a cow in the road and realized the car had gone into the ditch. He pulled over to help. “I passed the animal that they hit, and I knew it was gonna be bad,” said Lamoureux, who has driven for Bison Freight since 2015. “They hit a large cow that had somehow got out of its fenced off area, he said. “As they came over the crest of the hill, they nailed him.” The driver of the car, Jamie Price, said she and her 18-year-old son were returning home from vacation to Fairchild, Wisconsin. When the car struck the cow, she said, it flew over the vehicle. “You don’t think livestock is gonna be in the middle of the road,” said Price. “I can’t believe my son and I are alive.” While she and her son sustained extensive cuts and abrasions, they suffered no major injuries in the crash. At the scene, Lamoureux invited the crash victims into his truck while they waited for state troopers to arrive. He also provided them with wipes and bandages to help clean the cuts and remove the glass from their wounds. “I’m so blessed and thankful that he was there,” said Price. “I don’t know what we would’ve done. He kept me safe.” Keith Rahn WEL Companies — De Pere, Wisconsin Keith Rahn of Radford, Virginia, has been honored as a TCA Highway Angel after coming to the aid of a woman and her three children who were stranded on the highway. This is Rahn’s second set of angel wings; he was previously recognized for preventing a drunk driver from leaving the scene following an accident in August 2023. On September 29, 2023, at about 9:20 p.m., Rahn was driving in dense fog on eastbound Interstate 80 in Ohio when he came upon a car stopped in the lane ahead of him. “Thankfully I saw her,” Rahn said. “She was actually in traffic. She had lost power, and she didn’t have power even for the lights on her car. She was dead stopped.” According to the TCA Highway Angel nomination form that was submitted by Jessica Lynn Daniels, the woman in the car, she was traveling with her two infants and 7-year-old child in the car when she lost power. She did not have a phone with her, and she was frantically trying to catch the attention of other passing motorists for help. “Thankfully he was observant in the heavy fog and was able to stop and help push my car off the roadway and onto the shoulder before I was struck by another car,” Daniels wrote. “Nobody was stopping until this driver came and helped. He gave me all of his information, called the Ohio State Troopers, and stayed with me until they arrived to assist. I really am grateful for this driver, and I am sure that he saved our lives. God bless him!” Timothy Olden Decker Truck Line — Fort Dodge, Iowa   Timothy Olden of North Chesterfield, Virginia, earned a set of TCA Highway Angel wings after helping a fellow truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. The incident occurred on December 22, 2023, at about 2:30 a.m. Olden was driving on Interstate 40 through Crossville, Tennessee, when he saw an accident. A driver ahead of him, who was pulling a flatbed trailer, veered off the off ramp and crashed. Olden immediately pulled over safely, called 911 and went to help the other driver, who appeared to have only minor cuts and bruises. “He rolled his truck,” said Olden, who drives for Decker Truck Line. “He admitted to me and to the cops that he fell asleep.” Olden remained with the other driver until law enforcement arrived. He says he also shared a bit of advice with the other driver — the “three-yawn rule” when it comes to drowsing driving. “If you yawn three times in a row, get to a truck stop and rest,” Olden said. “Go stretch out in the back of the truck.” Jason Corino Melton Truck Lines — Tulsa Jason Corino of Deltona, Florida, is honored as a TCA Highway Angel because of his actions during a roadside shooting that prevented other motorists from being injured. On November 29, 2023, at about 11:30 a.m., Corino was traveling on US 491 in Cortez, Colorado, when he noticed a car being driven abnormally, preventing him from merging. The car passed Corino, along with three pickup trucks; then a police car passed, evidently in pursuit of the car. Corino later discovered the vehicle was involved in a “road rage” incident with the three trucks, and that police had been called for assistance. A few miles down the road, law enforcement pulled the car over right in front of Corino. There was not a proper shoulder on which to park, so the stopped cars partially blocked the right line. Corino slowed and attempted to pass in the left lane. “It’s just me, and the officer’s car in front of me and the suspect’s car in front of him, and I’ve got traffic behind me,” Corino said.“I got about 100 feet away and the kid got out of the car; then I heard the first two rounds (of gunfire). I slammed on my brakes right there to stop traffic behind me.” Within seconds, Jason witnessed a deadly shoot-out erupt between the suspect, Jason Campbell, and the law enforcement officer, Cortez Police Department Sergeant Michael Moran. Fortunately, Corino was able to turn on his truck’s dash camera and capture the entire incident in a recording, which was later submitted to police. “I could see the bullets bouncing off the ground,” Corino said. “I stopped right there to protect the people behind me.” Reports show that Moran died as a result of injuries sustained during the incident. According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Campbell, along with a passenger in the vehicle, were later contacted on private property at 7500 US Highway 160, where a member of the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office and a member of the Cortez Police Department engaged him, resulting in an officer-involved fatal shooting of the fugitive. Corino was a key witness regarding the roadside incident, and his camera footage was used in law enforcement’s investigation. This article originally appeared in the March/April 2024 edition of Truckload Authority, the official publication of the Truckload Carriers Association.