Truckload Authority Staff

Professional truck drivers Jackie Burnette, Daniel Cristian Ciorba, Bruno Filipe Da Costa Raposo, Aaron DeSilva, Ty Hinton, Robert Johnson, Ty Mauzerolle, Kris Stauffacher, Nick Still, Kirk Szecsodi, and brothers Calvin and Corey Williams have been named Highway Angels by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) for their acts of heroism while on the road. For their willingness to assist fellow drivers and motorists, TCA has presented each Highway Angel with a certificate, patch, lapel pin, and truck decals. Their employers have also received a certificate acknowledging their driver as a Highway Angel. To nominate a driver, to meet additional recipients, or to hear audio recordings as the recipients tell their story, visit highwayangel.org. JACKIE BURNETTE Jackie Burnette, from Woodlawn, Virginia, who drives for Mountain River Trucking of Mount Airy, North Carolina, was honored for his support of a young driver following a hit and run incident that pushed the woman’s vehicle against Burnette’s tractor-trailer. It was just before Thanksgiving and Burnette was traveling where Interstate 40 and Interstate 85 connect east of Greensboro, North Carolina. He suddenly felt the front end of his truck nearly lift off the ground at the right bumper. “I’d been hit hard, and it was hard to hold it in the lane,” he shared. “I looked and saw that a car had just kind of skated off me and then went off to the side.” It took Burnette nearly a mile to safely stop. “I called 911 and then my safety (advisor) to say I’d been in an accident and was going back to check on the driver,” recalled Burnette. He then hurried back to the scene. “There was a young lady, and the first thing she did was say how sorry she was and that she didn’t mean to hit me,” he shared. “I asked if she was okay. She was really shaken up. She said she thought someone had hit her and pushed her into me. It all happened so fast. I went over and looked and sure enough, someone coming from an on ramp had struck her and pushed her into me and then drove off.” Burnette said the young woman apologized for hitting his truck, but he reassured her that he didn’t care about the truck and as long as “she was OK, I was good.” “She was so torn up and said she was afraid someone was going to be mean. I said, ‘Who’s gonna be mean? Let’s go whip ‘em now!’ I was just trying to get her to laugh. She was so upset,” he recalled. A short while later, the young woman’s father arrived on the scene. “He asked me how the truck looked. I said, ‘It could be better, but all in all it’s not real bad.’ She did hit it hard, though. We’ve got big metal fenders on the bumpers that probably weigh 200 pounds. The boss man don’t skimp,” Burnette said with a laugh. “The reason this accident wasn’t worse than it was,  I have to give the boss man credit for his equipment. He’s got FlowBelows in between the drive tires (axles) on the tractor. When she hit the fender, she bounced off and came down the side and back into my drive wheels. If it weren’t for the FlowBelows, it would have sucked her in beneath the trailer and this would have been a lot worse story.” The impact bent Burnette’s bumper into a steer tire on the right side, cutting into it. He needed to have the bumper pulled off and have the tire replaced before it was safe to continue driving. DANIEL CRISTIAN CIORBA Daniel Cristian Ciorba, who lives in Laval, Quebec, Canada, and drives for C.A.T. Inc. of Quebec, Canada, was honored for aiding a truck driver from the same company following a collision. It was a sunny day in early October and Ciorba was southbound on Interstate 57 near Dix, Illinois. As he approached a bend in the road, he checked his mirrors and noticed another C.A.T. Inc. truck traveling about a quarter mile behind him. As Ciorba came around the bend, he saw there was a construction zone ahead, and one lane was closed. Traffic was quickly backing up and Ciorba had to cautiously slow down because a pickup truck was following closely behind him. A moment later, as he checked his right mirror again, he was shocked to see the other C.A.T. truck rear-end another tractor-trailer. “I’m almost certain he must have been blinded by the sun,” Ciorba shared with TCA. As soon as he could stop, Ciorba turned on his four-way flashers, grabbed his fire extinguisher, and ran back to the accident scene. As he reached the other C.A.T. truck, he saw that the cab had sustained heavy damage. Another motorist told Ciorba he could smell gas. Ciorba’s training as a truck mechanic kicked in and he worked quickly to cut the battery cables to prevent a spark and disconnected the fuel lines. He then checked on the driver. “The window was broken, and the door was crushed,” he shared, adding that the driver’s face was covered in blood and he was having difficulty breathing. He was pinned by the steering wheel. “I told him everything would be fine and to keep calm and breathe. I tried to open the door with a hand bar, but the door was completely compressed,” recalled Ciorba. He kept talking to him to keep him awake, but the driver lost consciousness three or four times. First responders arrived within 20 minutes, but it took more than an hour to extricate the driver from his truck. In the meantime, Ciorba stayed on scene and called the C.A.T. dispatcher to relay what was happening so the company could inform the family of the driver’s injuries and what hospital he was airlifted to. He then waited to be sure the truck and load was secure until it could be towed. The driver’s mother later contacted Ciorba to thank him for helping her son. He is now back at work, and the two men have met. Ciorba said his family raised him to help others in need. He is from Romania and moved to Quebec nine years ago. He was a truck mechanic before joining C.A.T. Inc. three years ago as a truck driver. He says his training helped him to know to disconnect the power and the fuel which likely prevented the situation from becoming far worse. BRUNO FILIPE DA COSTA RAPOSO Bruno Filipe Da Costa Raposo, who lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and drives for Bison Transport of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, was honored for stopping to aid a young woman after her vehicle veered off the road in front of him and into a ditch. This is his second set of Angel wings. It’s not every day that Da Costa Raposo has a woman jump into his arms, but it happened late one afternoon in February. Raposo was driving down Interstate 80 near Scott, Iowa, looking for a place to stop for the night. “It was snowing really bad, and icy,” Raposo shared with TCA. Due to the poor driving conditions, he had slowed to 50 mph when he saw a pickup truck trying to pass him in the left lane of the two-lane road, which was covered in snow. Raposo continued to slow down. “When she was beside my drive axle, she started swerving so I slowed down even more,” shared Raposo. “She was able to clear me, but when she passed in front of my truck her rear bumper was just 5 or maybe 6 inches from my bumper, and then she veered off the road and went in the ditch.” He remembered that the pickup rolled over on its passenger side. “I pulled over and got out, and she was already standing up inside the pickup cab with her feet on the passenger door,” said Raposo. “I told her to climb out the driver’s window and then I told her to jump, but she was scared. She had to jump down about 6 feet. I told her to jump and I would catch her. She was little, maybe 120 pounds. I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to hurt,’ but I caught her and then we both fell into the snow.” Thankfully, the young woman didn’t have any injuries. “I told her she was very lucky,” he shared. Raposo told her she could wait inside his truck to stay warm. He called 911 and first responders arrived within five minutes. The young woman later called Raposo’s employer, Bison Transport, to relay her thanks for his help that night. AARON DESILVA Aaron DeSilva, who lives in Midland, Texas, and drives for Melton Truck Lines of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was honored for stopping to help a young driver after a tractor-trailer clipped another vehicle, causing it to overturn and spin out of control. It was late one evening in March as DeSilva and his wife, Tiffany, were going through the West Memphis, Arkansas, area on Interstate 40. “All of a sudden I saw a big flash, sparks, and fire as something flew across the road in front of us,” DeSilva shared with TCA. It was a car, on its roof, sliding across the road. “Another tractor-trailer looked like he was switching lanes, or maybe wasn’t paying attention,” he added. “He just came over the line and clipped the front of the car and spun it out and flipped him on his roof.” The truck slowed and pulled over, but then left the scene. DeSilva pulled to the shoulder, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and jumped out as Tiffany called 911. He had to run across two lanes of traffic. “Cars and trucks slowed down long enough to look and then drove on,” he recalled. “We were the only ones that stopped.” DeSilva rushed to the overturned car and pried the driver’s door open. He found a young male driver in his early to mid-20s. “When I asked him if he was okay, his first words were, ‘What did I hit?’ I told him he didn’t hit anything, a truck hit him,” said DeSilva. “He was pretty shaken up.” DeSilva then helped him crawl out of the smoking vehicle. He turned off the car’s ignition and then moved the driver away from the vehicle and waited for first responders to arrive. The driver called his mother to let her know he had been in an accident. He handed the phone to Tiffany and his mother asked if she and DeSilva would stay with her son until she and her husband could get there. They agreed. The couple later learned the young driver had sustained several broken ribs. Thinking back on that evening, DeSilva said they were probably put there for a reason. “We had made a couple stops during the day which put us there at that particular time,” he said. “My wife says everything happens for a reason. We were meant to be there to help him.” DeSilva has been driving over 22 years and has driven over the road for nearly eight years. “I’ve been all over the country,” he said. “Our kids are grown now so it’s just the two of us. We decided to be on the road fulltime together. I enjoy my job and seeing the country.” DeSilva is originally from Bermuda and has lived in the U.S. for 12 years. TY HINTON Ty Hinton, who lives in Olla, Louisiana, and also drives for Melton Truck Lines of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was honored for stopping to assist an elderly man who had fallen next to a busy street. Hinton was driving through Peoria, Illinois, early one afternoon in November 2020. He was on his way to pick up a load when he noticed an elderly man sitting on the sidewalk next to the street. “He was fiddling around with a walker,” recalled Hinton. “That threw up a flag in my head. I remember my grandma having a walker and falling and not being able to get back up. I thought about it for a second and decided I couldn’t not go check on him.” Hinton quickly made a U-turn at a stop sign and then pulled up near the man, hopped out of his cab, and walked over to him. The man told him he’d been sitting there for about two hours with the sun beating down on him. “He’d gone out to get groceries and when he came back, he’d been walking too long,” shared Hinton. “He tripped on a little patch of mud and fell and cut his arm up on the sidewalk.” The man didn’t have a phone or Life Alert. Hinton helped him get up and sit on the seat of his walker. He then gave him a bottle of water and a cold compress for his wrist to cool him down a bit. Hinton shared that the man was borderline dehydrated by the time he arrived. “I alerted the authorities and waited with him,” he said. “His son arrived before the paramedics got there and thanked me. He said he was so thankful that a complete stranger had stopped. But I did what I hope anyone else would do … it was a little upsetting to me that he’d been sitting there that long. In the 20 to 30 minutes I had been sitting there, so many cars went by and I thought, ‘Wow, how did nobody see this guy?’ It took me stopping a 70-foot vehicle to stop and help him.” Hinton later learned the man’s son had called Melton to express his gratitude. “I’m not normally the kind of person to seek recognition for what I do. I was just raised to be humble and helpful,” said Hinton, adding that the elderly man also called him. “We had a good 30- to 40-minute conversation. It’s the first time I’ve ever been in a situation like that. I let instinct kick in and I helped. A load can wait. That man couldn’t. I’m glad I was paying attention. I think that’s why others didn’t stop. They were too busy doing their own thing and passed him by. My grandparents taught me to be compassionate toward everyone. When you see someone in trouble, you help.” ROBERT JOHNSON Robert Johnson, who lives in Livingston, Texas, and drives for Freymiller Inc. of Oklahoma City, was honored for rushing to pull two men from a burning truck. It was an ordinary day in March as Johnson was driving along Interstate 85 on his way to Charlotte, North Carolina. It was mid-afternoon when he happened to take note of a straight truck as it passed him. Shortly afterward, Johnson saw a column of smoke up ahead of him. As he rounded the corner before the next exit, he saw that the truck that had passed him was now on fire. “There were two people still in the truck,” he shared with TCA. Johnson is a retired firefighter and knew there wasn’t much time. He quickly acted, positioning his truck to block the right two lanes. He jumped out, ran to the truck, and managed to get the driver and passenger out and a safe distance away from the truck. “The fire was too far gone for a fire extinguisher,” he remembered. “The first thing I had to do was get them out and to a safe place.” Johnson then called 911 and explained the situation. By this time, the truck was engulfed in flames. “The first fire engine arrived within five minutes,” he said. “As they were taking their hoses out the tank on the truck blew.” When the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, he learned that the driver had life-threatening injuries and the passenger had also suffered burns. Johnson knows that if it weren’t for his training as a firefighter and a professional truck driver, those two men would very likely have lost their lives that day. He thought about the families they may have at home waiting for them. Johnson was a firefighter for four years. One day he went into a structural fire. “When I came out of the house it collapsed behind me,” he said. “That’s when I retired.” He began driving in August 2019. “My mom drove truck for 30 years,” added Johnson. “I decided to follow in her footsteps.” TY MAUZEROLLE Ty Mauzerolle, who lives in Springfield, Missouri, and drives for Prime Inc., also located in Springfield, Missouri, was honored for stopping at the scene of a fatal two-car accident and working to rescue a 9-year-old boy. Mauzerolle and his student driver, Leonel Sanchez, were on Interstate 40 near Holbrook, Arizona, on their way to Henderson, Nevada, in early June 2020. “It was around 9 p.m.,” shared Mauzerolle. “It was really dark; there’s nothing out there, just desert.” Then he saw something glowing orange up ahead on the right. Mauzerolle moved to the left lane. “It was a car on fire,” he recalled. “As we got closer, there was another car in the left lane sitting sideways.” Mauzerolle had to initiate a hard stop at 65 mph. He then grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the burning vehicle as Sanchez called 911. Mauzerolle could hear a child screaming. “It was a boy, maybe 9 or 10 years old,” he said. Other cars and trucks stopped and drivers rushed over with their extinguishers. “We were able to get most of the flames out,” he said. The boy’s father was deceased, as was the elderly driver in the other vehicle. “I knew we had to get this kid out of the car,” said Mauzerolle, “but it was really mangled, and the doors weren’t opening.” Sanchez helped him get tools out of the truck to pry the doors open and then grabbed a blanket. “I was afraid of the flames flaring back up,” he added. “We didn’t know his (the boy’s) injuries, but his leg was stuck.” He worked with two other drivers on the scene to free him. He then carried the boy away from the vehicle. “I was on the ground with this kid in my arms,” continued Mauzerolle. “A trooper arrived and said he would be happy to take over, but I didn’t want to let him go until he was put in an ambulance.” Both of the boy’s arms were broken and likely both legs, and at least one rib. He hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. “They tried to give him pain medication,” recalled Mauzerolle, “but he was terrified of getting a shot. He was screaming. I asked him if he liked video games. I told him I had a Nintendo Switch in the truck and that if he took the shot then he could have the game,” he said. “This was the worst day in that kid’s life. I wanted to do anything to take his mind off what just happened.” The boy was taken by Life Flight to a children’s hospital in Phoenix. Mauzerolle said he and Sanchez made a couple of unscheduled stops that day. “It ended up putting us in the right place at the right time,” he shared. “We would have crossed Arizona a lot earlier and missed the accident. That’s just how the chain of events worked.” He later learned that the boy and his father were just 7 miles from home that night. The other driver, an elderly man, was driving in the wrong direction. “This wasn’t reckless driving,” he said. “This was an accident. Anything can happen. It makes you appreciate what you have. The next day I called all my family.” TCA and its Highway Angel program has also recognized William and Becky Gregory, owner-operators who drive for Titan Transfer, Inc. They were also on I-40 that night and stopped at the scene to help. Mauzerolle said Sanchez was in his final stage of Prime’s student driver program. “He is still with me. He was such a good student I hired him to work with me,” he said. “He was very helpful at the accident scene. I am very grateful he was with me that night.” KRIS STAUFFACHER Kris Stauffacher, who lives in Collinsville, Oklahoma, and drives for Melton Truck Lines of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was honored for stopping to help a fellow driver whose trailer was engulfed in flames on the side of the road. Stauffacher was heading north on Interstate 45 near Alma, Texas, around 4 a.m. with a trainee in September 2020 when he saw a truck on fire ahead. The men immediately pulled over and Stauffacher grabbed his fire extinguisher and ran to the scene. “The trailer was pretty much fully engulfed,” he recalled. The driver was able to jump out of the cab and had already emptied his fire extinguisher. “It looked like the fire was coming from the drive tires.” said Stauffacher. He recalled working quickly to knock down the flames to keep them from spreading to the tractor. “They were starting to creep up on the sleeper,” he added. “The flames went into the trailer and just ate it up. I asked the driver what he was hauling, and he said beer, so it wasn’t anything hazardous.” The fire department arrived just a few minutes later and finished putting out the rest of the fire. The driver didn’t appear injured. “I was shocked by how many people just drove by and didn’t do anything,” said Stauffacher. “This is a well-traveled road. We could have maybe saved the trailer. The ironic part is that I’ve been a trainer for five-and-a-half years. I tell them (student drivers) if there’s someone who needs help we need to stop. We have fire extinguishers and water and blankets on the truck. We can call for help and do more than just drive on. People would rather take videos on their cell phone than help. As a professional driver, nine times out of 10 if there’s an accident, normally truck drivers are the first ones on the scene because there’s so many of us. That’s someone’s family member. It’s not mandated, but I can stop and render some help.” Stauffacher has been driving for nearly 11 years. “I’ve come across several things in my career,” he said. “I’ve reported brush fires, spinouts in the winter — I try to stop and help. We’re a brotherhood, we’re out here doing the same thing. I would want someone to help me.” NICK STILL Nick Still, a driver with Hirschbach Motor Lines, Inc. of Dubuque, Illinois, was honored for aiding a couple after their vehicle spun out and overturned on an icy road. Still was driving along Highway 34 near Galesburg, Illinois, late one morning in February. It was sleeting and snowing, and the roads were slick so he was leaving some extra distance between himself and the pickup truck ahead of him. “Just as we were approaching an overpass, I watched him spin out,” he shared. “They spun around and rolled. A big cloud of powdery snow went up and when it settled, they were laying on the passenger side in the ditch. The driver wasn’t driving erratically, but simply hit a patch of black ice under a thin layer of snow. I pulled to the side, threw on my hazards, and called 911.” He then ran over to the overturned vehicle as the driver was climbing out of the driver’s door. “I gave him a hand and then helped lift his wife out,” Still shared, adding that the pair appeared to be in their 50s and were fortunate to walk away without any major injuries. “She may have injured her arm because the vehicle landed on the passenger side,” he recalled. “It all happened so fast that I didn’t even catch their names. I was just trying to make sure they were OK.” Still waited until police and EMTs arrived. He learned the couple later called his employer to thank him for helping them that day. He has been driving with Hirschbach for three years. He is also a Certified Trucker Against Trafficking. KIRK SZECSODI Kirk Szecsodi, who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and drives for Len Dubios Trucking of Winnipeg, was honored for his alertness that led to successfully locating a missing elderly man. Fate was shining on Szecsodi the day he saw a Silver Alert on a digital highway sign on U.S. Highway 287 near Waco, Texas. Silver Alerts help locate vulnerable adults who go missing. “It said it was an elderly man driving a black Dodge Charger,” recalled Szecsodi. He jotted down the vehicle make and model and the license plate number. “I’d always thought it’d be cool to help find someone,” he shared. A few hours later, he stopped at the Love’s Truck Stop in Quanah, Texas, for his half-hour break. “I went inside for a while and as I was walking out the front door, this elderly man held the door open for me,” Sxecsodi recalled. Szecsodi thanked him and then saw the man walk toward a black Dodge Charger. He says the license plate number rang a bell. He ran back inside and grabbed a piece of paper. “I only got part of the license plate number,” he said. “But I thought that might be the guy.” After getting back in his truck, Szecsodi saw that the license plate number matched what he had taken down earlier. “That was the guy,” he exclaimed when recounting the day. “I called the police and told them I had seen him in a black Charger heading toward Amarillo.” The police called him back about 20 minutes later to thank him and said they found the man and he was safe. Szecsodi is still in disbelief about his luck. “It’s incredible that the very person on the Silver Alert was standing right there holding the door for me! That was the most bizarre part,” he said adding he’s relieved that things worked out well. CALVIN AND COREY WILLIAMS Calvin and Corey Williams, twin brothers who live in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and drive for Armellini Express Lines of Palm City, Florida, were honored for rushing to the aid of a couple whose vehicle veered off the road and into a steep ravine, crashing into a tree. Around 4 a.m. on February 21, Calvin was on Interstate 44 near Bristow, Oklahoma, when a vehicle passed him at a high rate of speed; then veered off the road and disappeared down a steep embankment. Corey was in the sleeper. They also had a trainee, Allen Ford, with them. Calvin safely applied the brakes and woke up Corey as he quickly pulled over and directed Allen to put the reflectors out behind the truck. They called 911, rushed to the edge of the road, and peered down into a wooded ravine. “It was pitch black out there,” recalled Calvin, but they could see a small fire about 300 to 400 feet from the road. The team could hear people screaming for help. Having only the light from their cellphones to light the way, they ran into a barbed-wire fence and climbed over it. They then scrambled down a slick, muddy embankment. By the time they reached the vehicle the flames had died out. “They hit a tree so hard it knocked the headlights out and pushed the motor and transmission into the cab,” said Calvin. The windows were broken out, and the brothers found a male passenger, conscious, laying on the ground with a serious leg injury. The female driver was about 30 feet from the vehicle. “She was bleeding and shivering and couldn’t move her legs,” shared Calvin, adding that he suspected she had a broken back. “She kept saying she had fallen asleep at the wheel. She looked like she was going into shock.” “It was 23 degrees that night,” added Corey. “They were cold and wet and freezing. It was a bad situation.” One of the brothers climbed back up to the truck to grab blankets. Because of the area’s remote location, it was an hour before the police arrived, and another hour before the EMTs reached them. “But they had no way to get down the hill and successfully bring two people back up, especially with their injuries,” said Corey. One of the brothers opened a tracking app on his phone and pulled up a detailed image of the area. The crash scene was near an old dirt road, but difficult to get to. It took the EMTs another 30 minutes before they finally reached the injured couple. “That was a crazy night,” said Corey. “We stayed with them for four hours until the sun came up, with no jackets on in 23 degrees. When we heard those sirens, it was the best sound I’d heard all night.” “I’m glad we stopped,” shared Calvin. “There aren’t any houses back there. No one would have seen them from the highway. All I was thinking about was saving a human life. We didn’t know what type of situation was down there. We didn’t care.” The brothers have been driving together for 13 years. Calvin said he was fascinated by semitrucks as a kid. The two decided they wanted to become truck drivers. “We want to be the best drivers we can be,” Calvin said. “We do more than just drive truck. We save lives, too.”

Professional truck drivers William Church, Stan Clayton, Demetrius Fields, Morgan Kirkland, Christopher Lloyd, William “Bill” McNamee, team drivers Kloe Myers and John Dowdy, John Vesey, and Bill Younger have been named Highway Angels by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) for their acts of heroism while on the road. Since the program’s inception in August 1997, nearly 1,300 professional truck drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels for the exemplary courtesy, and courage they have displayed while on the job. The program is made possible by presenting sponsor, EpicVue, and supporting sponsor, DriverFacts. WILLIAM CHURCH William Church, who drives for CFI and lives in DeLand, Florida, is being honored for stopping to help a family after their vehicle caught fire. Church was driving on Interstate 80 near Council Bluffs, Iowa, one evening in late July 2020 when he saw flames coming from underneath the car in front of him. Without a moment to spare, he pulled over to the shoulder when the driver did and jumped out of his cab to assist. “The flames were coming from underneath the engine,” Church shared with TCA. He quickly helped the two adults pull two small children, a toddler and a 4- or 5-year-old girl, out of the vehicle. As Church ran to get his fire extinguisher, he told the adults to get the children as far away from the vehicle as possible. Church was able to extinguish the fire. He said he is thankful no one was injured. “The kids were crying, so I let them see inside the passenger side of my truck,” he said. “I gave them each a cookie and let them honk the horn.” Although the driver and passengers were shaken, they thanked him for stopping to help. First responders arrived within five minutes. Church, who has been driving for 14 years, always carries a first-aid kit with him. “I love this profession,” he said. “This is a career for me, and I want to make a difference. I enjoy what I do, and I like being helpful. I want to make sure everyone’s okay out here.” STAN CLAYTON Stan Clayton, who drives for ABF Freight System, Inc., of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and lives in Cherryville, North Carolina, is being honored for helping a fellow truck driver after his truck rolled over on a highway exit ramp. It was the evening of June 26, 2020, and Clayton was traveling on Interstate 26 near Spartanburg, South Carolina. As he approached the exit ramp for I-85, he witnessed another truck with a 53-foot trailer lose control on the ramp and topple over onto its side. “It was a dogleg hook and it looked like he was going too fast for it,” recalled Clayton. “He laid it right over on its side.” Clayton and a car in front of him safely moved to the shoulder and rushed over to the overturned truck. “I looked through the front windshield and he was lying on the driver’s side door,” Clayton shared. The truck’s engine was still in drive and the tires were spinning, and the driver seemed to be disoriented. The windshield was already bowed, so Clayton popped it out carefully and crawled inside the cab. “The driver was just looking around,” he said. “He said the seatbelt was hurting him. The steering wheel was pushing into him, too. He didn’t know what happened and didn’t believe me when I told him he had a wreck.” Clayton turned the engine off and then worked to release the driver’s seatbelt. His attempts to free the disoriented driver scared the driver who pushed him back, causing Clayton to fall out of the broken windshield. He sustained a serious laceration to his leg that began bleeding quite heavily. When the paramedics arrived, they were  concerned about Clayton’s injury. However, he refused an ambulance ride to the hospital, insisting that he wanted to get his truck safely secured first. According to his manager, Clayton got back in his ABF tractor and returned to the service center, clocked out, and then proceeded to the emergency room to get medical attention. The slash to his leg cut an artery and required 22 stitches. Clayton’s injured leg has healed well and he’s back at work. Clayton later learned the driver had been running empty with about 44,000 pounds of steel racks in the back. He believes the racks must have shifted when the driver took the curve on the exit ramp. To watch a video of Clayton as he recounts his story, visit www.highwayangel.org/recipients. DEMETRIUS FIELDS Demetrius Fields, who lives in Atlanta and drives for Hirschbach of Dubuque, Iowa, is being honored for stopping to help a family after their vehicle spun out in the middle of a busy highway during a winter storm. Fields was driving through Pennsylvania on December 16, 2020, as Winter Storm Gail was closing in. He was heading to Indiana, and Pennsylvania was preparing to close the interstates as conditions worsened. “It was coming down heavy, pretty much a whiteout,” he recalled. “You could barely see the hash lines on the road.” As Fields drove along, he saw a vehicle ahead spin out, hit the guardrail, and end up in the middle of the roadway. “He probably hit black ice,” shared Fields. Acting swiftly, Fields pulled to the emergency lane and put on his flashers. A Swift Transportation truck driver pulled over at about the same time. “We both jumped out,” noted Fields. “There was heavy traffic coming up behind, especially trucks. We wanted to get the vehicle off the roadway because of the poor visibility.” Fields and the Swift driver worked quickly to help the driver out of the vehicle, and the three of them risked their lives to push the vehicle into the emergency lane. “We then got the driver’s wife and kids out and put the kids in my cab to keep them warm,” shared Fields. It took first responders more than 30 minutes to arrive. “God put me and that Swift driver in the right place at the right time,” said Fields. “If I was in that situation, I would hope someone would do the same for me.” The driver later contacted Hirschbach to say that the experience with Fields had given him a newfound respect for truck drivers. “A lot of people don’t acknowledge what we do,” Fields added. “We’re out here day in and day out, running up and down the highway, trying to make sure people across the country are taken care of. It’s a lot more than holding a steering wheel. It’s 90% mental and 10% physical.” Fields has been driving for five years and was also a trainer for a couple years. “I enjoyed it,” he concluded. “My very first student was my father. It was supposed to be a one-and-done but I enjoyed it so I kept doing it.” He says he does this work for his wife and four children. MORGAN KIRKLAND Morgan Kirkland, who lives in Milton, Florida, and drives for Groendyke Transport of Little Rock, Arkansas, is being honored for his skill in preventing a deadly head-on collision while transporting methanol. A light rain was coming down as Kirkland was traveling eastbound on U.S. Highway 90 around 2 a.m. in late September 2020 between Pensacola, Florida, and Pace, Florida, hauling methanol. While driving across a bridge, only one of the two eastbound lanes was operable because of Hurricane Sally, which had washed out the other lane. “There was usually a DOT person standing there, monitoring the sides of the road so that no one would use them,” shared Kirkland. He noticed a set of lights in front of him, but the rain was distorting them. At first, he thought it was a Florida Department of Transportation employee on the side of the road. “Before I knew it, the lights swerved, and I realized it was actually a car on the wrong side of the road coming at me full speed. I couldn’t tell exactly where he was until the last few seconds,” he recalled. Kirkland had nowhere to go, and had a line of cars behind him. “I knew that if I moved to the side of the road, those behind me would have been killed. They wouldn’t have known what was coming,” Kirkland said, adding that all he could do was slow down and get everyone to move over. “I was able to get a third of my rig into the bad lane, but unfortunately, it resulted in me pinning a vehicle between the bridge wall and the back end of my highly explosive trailer,” he added. Kirkland couldn’t completely avoid a collision. The oncoming vehicle, a Jeep, hit his trailer. “It ripped the entire axle out from under my trailer and just missed my tractor,” he said. “It scraped along the side of the tank and took out the rear end of the trailer.” Kirkland carefully got out and approached the Jeep. The driver was conscious. Kirkland told him he was hauling methanol, which was very volatile and instructed him not to open his door, as it could create a spark. Meanwhile, Kirkland said, help arrived quickly and everyone was immediately evacuated. The driver of the oncoming vehicle was cited for DUI and driving the wrong direction on the roadway. “My worst fear almost came true, that I would die in this truck,” said Kirkland. “What I do for a living scares me to death. I’ve got six beautiful children ranging from 5 to 21 years old. I’ve got a loving wife. I thank God for the speedy recovery of the vehicle and emergency management getting there so quickly.” CHRISTOPHER LLOYD Christopher Lloyd, who lives in Forest, Mississippi, and drives for Airline Transportation Specialists of St. Paul, Minnesota, is being honored for stopping at the scene to rescue two motorists after their car slammed into a utility pole and erupted in flames. It was 3 a.m. one morning in late November 2020, and Lloyd was driving along a surface street on his way to the FedEx hub in Nashville when he came upon a single-vehicle crash. A car had struck a galvanized power pole at a high rate of speed. When Lloyd arrived moments later, the car’s engine compartment was completely engulfed in flames. “There were other vehicles pulling up and watching, taking pictures, but not getting out to help,” Lloyd shared. Without a moment to spare, he safely pulled over and called 911, then grabbed his fire extinguisher and jumped out of his cab. “I couldn’t get the flames out completely,” he recalled, adding that he tried the car’s doors but found them locked. “I ran back to the truck for a winch bar and my 10-pound hazmat extinguisher to finish putting the fire out and to bust out the windows.” The car’s cabin was filled with smoke. Other people now stopped to help. Lloyd found the female driver pinned behind the wheel. “She was unresponsive, but breathing,” he said. “The male passenger ended up in the back seat and was in pretty bad shape. I checked and found a pulse, and he was breathing.” He directed another person to hold the man’s neck still and not to move him. Lloyd said that since the fire was extinguished, that was the safest thing to do until emergency responders could arrive. The driver and passenger were both in critical condition and were transported for medical care. Lloyd later learned that he was the only one who called 911. A police officer told him the pair would have burned alive if it were not for him. “That wasn’t my normal run that night,” said Lloyd. “The driver that usually takes that run had broken down. The dispatcher called and asked if I could take it. I was delayed by over an hour, but somehow it all lined up for me to be there at that precise moment in time to hopefully save their lives.” He hasn’t been able to get an update on their condition but said “I hope the best for them.” Lloyd shared that he became a volunteer firefighter at the age of 16 and went to a firefighting academy. He later joined the U.S. Coast Guard. “The night of the fire, it all came flooding back …  how to manage a scene,” he said. “Just like it was yesterday.” WILLIAM “BILL” McNAMEE William “Bill” McNamee, who lives in Christopher, Illinois, and drives for Carbon Express of Wharton, New Jersey, is being honored for stopping to help a seriously injured girl after her family’s vehicle was involved in a head-on collision. This is the second time McNamee has been named a Highway Angel. McNamee was traveling east on I-44 near Marshfield, Missouri, just before 5 p.m. on September 10, 2020, when he noticed traffic was slowing up ahead. An eastbound SUV had driven off the road, broken through the cable barriers in the median, and entered the westbound lanes, where it crashed head-on into another vehicle. Other drivers had already stopped to help. Without hesitation, McNamee pulled over and rushed to the scene. “Someone was getting a toddler in a car seat out of the backseat, and two people were pulling a uniformed officer out of the driver’s seat,” he recalled. Someone had laid a little girl on top of the collapsed cable barrier on the grass, but no one was tending to her, McNamee recalled. He ran over to the girl, who appeared to be around 7 years old, and began assessing her injuries. McNamee, a first responder with his local fire department, shared that she was severely wounded. “She was unresponsive and was having trouble breathing,” he said. Someone handed him a small Army medic kit. He opened the girl’s shirt revealing chest injuries too massive to allow him to perform CPR. “I was praying for her,” he said. “I was telling her to keep breathing.” Another person was with the girl’s father, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy, whom he later learned had been gravely injured. “He was calling out to his daughter that ‘Daddy’s here. Everything’s gonna be okay.’ I kept telling her she was going to be okay, that help was coming, and to listen for the sirens,” added McNamee. Meanwhile, a nurse stopped to help. “She stabilized the girl’s neck, and we got her ready for emergency transport,” he shared with TCA. McNamee is uncertain what happened to the other driver. “He just stayed in his vehicle. Apparently, he was traveling across the country.” The other driver passed a breathalyzer and chemical test. He also was transported to the hospital. McNamee learned the off-duty deputy, just 26 years old, who had also sustained massive chest trauma, did not survive. He added that the family was extricated from the car because those first on the scene saw smoke and were worried about a fire. However, the “smoke” was dust from the airbags. “They were everyday citizens (trying to do the right thing),” McNamee said, noting that he’s proud of the four other truck drivers and the nurse who stopped to help the family. “I don’t know who they were but trucking still has some knights of the road,” he said. The young girl was flown to a children’s hospital with several serious injuries requiring surgery. He learned she is home now and has begun attending school. The little boy sustained minor injuries. KLOE MYERS AND JOHN DOWDY Team drivers Kloe Myers and John Dowdy, both of Thomaston, Georgia, who drive for Hirschbach of Dubuque, Iowa, are being honored for stopping to help motorists whose vehicle caught fire. It was March 16, 2020, and Myers was behind the wheel and her partner, Dowdy, was in the sleeper. She had just passed through a weigh station off Interstate 75 outside Atlanta when she saw people in distress on the side of the road, with the bed of their pickup on fire. “There were two males and a female,” recalled Myers, “and only one person had stopped to help.” Without hesitation, she knew she had to help them. She safely pulled over and maneuvered her truck to force traffic around the scene. She awakened Dowdy and grabbed the fire extinguisher as he scurried to get dressed. Myers was able to quickly extinguish the flames as Dowdy helped the others pull boxes and bags of smoldering items out of the pickup bed. “We were trying to prevent the fire from spreading to the car they were towing,” she added. Dowdy ran to their truck and handed off gallon jugs of water they were carrying. The group used them to douse everything and stomped out smoldering embers. “I ruined a pair of shoes, but it was worth it,” said Myers. The driving team learned the three motorists were in the process of moving. “We were able to prevent damage to the car, but they were pretty upset that they lost everything they were moving, mostly personal items and all their kids’ toys, but they thanked us for stopping,” said Myers. “It all happened so fast.” First responders arrived after the fire was out. Myers has been driving for less than two years. She and Dowdy have been driving together for over a year. They’ve come upon fires in the past and try to always be prepared. “I try to help everyone I can when I see them broken down on the road,” she shared. “If I can’t stop, I feel bad. The side of the road isn’t always big enough for me to pull over.” Thankfully, Myers’ quick thinking and heroic actions that day helped prevent a catastrophe. JOHN VESEY John Vesey, who lives in Oregon, Illinois, and drives for Hirschbach Motor Lines of Dubuque, Iowa, is being honored for stopping to help a fellow driver who lost control of his truck during a fire and drove off the road. It was December 19, 2020, and Vesey was westbound on U.S. 34, near Galesburg, Illinois, on his way to Monmouth to pick up a load. It was late in the morning when another truck driver passed him in the left lane of the four-lane divided highway. “As he got out about a quarter-mile ahead of me, he started to lose control,” explained Vesey. “He went into the center median and then careened over to right side, went off in the ditch, and into a corn field.” Vesey slowed down right away and pulled over. “Once he got to the corn field, the driver jumped out of the truck while it was still moving,” said Vesey. “I could see a flash of smoke and fire coming out of the cab.” Vesey grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran across the field. “I yelled out to him to ask if he was OK, and he said he was.” Vesey continued running toward the truck and emptied his fire extinguisher into the cab. “I then went back to the driver to see if he was all right. He ended up having second-degree burns on his hands, and his hair was singed on the back.” Vesey then called 911. He went back and unloaded the driver’s fire extinguisher as well, to be sure everything was okay. The fire was contained to the center console area. As Vesey helped the truck driver back across the field to the road, police, fire, and ambulance crews were arriving. “Another driver across the highway came over to help as well. The whole thing was maybe 10 minutes from start to finish,” he said. “Pretty good for a rural community.” Vesey is trained as a paramedic and has a lot of emergency response experience. “I interned and spent the first year as a paramedic and EMT in Chicago and got my paramedic license. It was an awesome experience,” he shared. “I spent a year on the private ambulance side and then moved up to Northwest Illinois and was a paramedic there.” He was also an Eagle Scout and is a U.S. Navy veteran. He’s been driving for eight years and also has office experience. “I choose to be on the road,” he said. “You get a little bit of the road in you, and you gotta scratch that itch. I love driving.” BILL YOUNGER Bill Younger, who lives in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and drives for John Christner Trucking of Sapulpa, Oklahoma, is being honored for stopping to help a young woman after her vehicle struck a deer late at night. It was around 11 p.m. on November 20, 2020, and Younger was driving along the Indian Nation Turnpike, south of Henryetta, Oklahoma, when a young woman passed him. “The next thing I knew, a deer came up an embankment right in front of her and she hit it. She didn’t have a choice. It was so fast, and there was nowhere to go,” he shared. Without a moment to spare, Younger safely pulled over, grabbed a flashlight, and hopped out of his cab. “It did a number (on her vehicle),” said Younger. “She was scared to death. I’ve never seen a car (end up) like this. It was all structural damage. She had a piece of plastic on the car, the structural cover, that went underneath the car. It was all ripped up,” he added. “She asked if she could drive it. I got in there and had to bust it all out from under the car. It was probably 4 to 5 feet wide and 5 or 6 feet long. The bumper was fastened to it.” Younger took the license plate off for her and then got under the car to check the radiator and hoses for leaks. “She started it up and it ran real good,” he said. He then did a safety check. “She had a lot of structural damage, but we tested everything to make sure she could safely drive it.” He then followed her about 40 miles to Henryetta. “She called me when she got to her destination safely.” A friend of the young woman later called Younger’s employer, John Christener Trucking, to commend Younger for everything he did to help that night and said he represented the company well. For their willingness to assist fellow drivers and motorists, TCA has presented each Highway Angel with a certificate, patch, a lapel pin, and truck decals. Their employers have also received a certificate acknowledging their driver as a Highway Angel. To nominate a driver, or to meet additional recipients, visit highwayangel.com.

Professional truck drivers Royford Burris, Joseph Brown, Christina Castillo, Phil Cicero, Clayvon Daniels, William and Becky Gregory, Ken Lukomski, and Earl Morgan-Heft have been named Highway Angels by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) for their acts of heroism while on the road. Since the program’s inception in August 1997, nearly 1,300 professional truck drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels for the exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage they have displayed while on the job. The program is made possible by Presenting Sponsor EpicVue and Supporting Sponsor DriverFacts. Royford Burris Royford Burris, who drives for Stevens Transport and lives in Lauderhill, Florida, is being honored for stopping to help at the scene of a two-car collision that resulted in multiple fatalities. The evening of August 23, 2020, is one that Burris will never forget. He was traveling on U.S. Highway 63 near Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, with a load bound for Orlando, Florida. He had just ended a call with his wife so he could focus on his descent down the mountainous, winding terrain when he saw two cars in the middle of the road. One was on fire. A silver van had drifted over the centerline and collided head-on with a red car coming from the other direction. As he approached the scene, Burris safely pulled over and turned on his flashers. A pickup pulled up at the same time. “We were the first ones on the scene,” recalled Burris. “We grabbed our fire extinguishers and ran to the red car.” After they extinguished the flames, Burris and the motorist discovered the driver’s body lying about 20 feet away. “It was horrible,” he said. Other cars were beginning to approach the scene. “I didn’t want anyone else to see that.” He ran back to his truck and grabbed a towel to cover the body. Burris and the other driver then rushed to the van, which was badly mangled. The woman in the driver’s seat was deceased. Burris carefully lifted her out of the vehicle. EMTs had arrived and put her on a stretcher. He learned that her 6-month-old baby, who had been in a car seat in the back, had also died. The only survivor was a girl, who appeared to be 13 or 14 years old. She was trapped in the front passenger seat. “She was crying and in pain,” said Burris. “She said she couldn’t breathe. I said, ‘look at me. I’m not going to let you die. I promise.’” He called a police officer over and asked him to help. Burris kicked out the back door and climbed in to retrieve her. “I was trying to break the seat apart. I ripped the seatbelt out. I don’t know where I got the strength,” he said. Burris struggled to free the girl and was finally able to extract her through the window and hand her off to the officer. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” shared Burris. “I had just told my wife that things were going well and the road was so calm. Once I saw those cars, I knew that it was my duty to help in any way I could. I’m sorry I couldn’t save the others.” As Burris was leaving the scene, officers thanked him for his heroic actions and offered to escort him to the nearest safe haven, which Burris accepted. He has received updates on the girl’s condition and is relieved to know she is now home with her father. “Royford is a great driver and this is just another example he sets,” shared Stevens Transport Driver Manager Kenny Harwell. “Not only is he a hardworking driver, father, and grandfather, but he is also a hero. We are extremely thankful to Royford for setting the standards not only for his fellow drivers but for all of us at Stevens. He is a true asset to Stevens, and I’m proud to work with him day in and day out.” Joseph Brown Joseph Brown, from South Bend, Indiana, who drives for Halvor Lines Inc., is being honored for stopping to help a driver after his tractor-trailer was overturned in a heavy rainstorm. On August 10, 2020, the State of Iowa was hit with a driving rainstorm, carried along by 99 mph winds. Brown was on Interstate 35 in rural Iowa, headed north toward Minneapolis. “It was getting really bad out,” he shared. “I’ve never driven in anything like that. You could barely see 20 feet in front of you.” He slowed down and pulled over for a few minutes, but the winds were pushing the truck. “A lot of trucks and cars were passing by,” he recalled. Brown decided to get back on the road. He was thankful for the extra weight of the load he was hauling. He went a little farther down the road and saw an overturned truck, with the cab lying on its passenger side in the right lane. Brown pulled up about 20 feet from the truck and put his flashers on. He wanted to protect the overturned cab from traffic. “Trucks were flying by him and cars were going around. I wasn’t sure it was safe to get out,” Brown recalled. He sat parked for a couple minutes, and then the rain let up. “I decided to check on the driver,” said Brown. “I didn’t want to hesitate any longer.” He went over and found the driver standing up inside the cab. He had been able to maneuver out of his seatbelt. “He was standing there, wet. I offered to have him come and sit in my truck,” shared Brown. “He said he’d been [a driver] for 20 years.” Although the driver didn’t have any visible injuries, he told Brown his shoulders were hurting from the seat belt. He had already called 911. As they waited, Brown was worried about someone hitting them. “You couldn’t see 5 feet in front of you at one point,” Brown recalled. “I was relying on my flashers so we wouldn’t get hit. It was too windy to put triangles out.” Flares would have been extinguished by the wind and rain. The two men sat there for half an hour. Brown said the fire department was the first on the scene. EMTs assessed the driver and put him in an ambulance. Brown and the driver have stayed in touch. “There are a lot of good drivers out there,” he said. “We gotta look out for one another.” Christina Castillo Christina Castillo, who is from Union City, California, and drives for TForce Logistics, is being honored for coming to the aid of an elderly woman who collapsed in the street during a health emergency. Castillo was driving down a residential street in Castro Valley, California, on the morning of October 1, 2020, when she saw an elderly woman walking along the sidewalk to the right of her. “She was staggering a bit, which caught my attention,” said Castillo. “She was holding onto the fencing and stopped for a moment. Then she started walking again, so I figured she was okay.” Castillo continued, making her delivery at a nearby school. That day, she happened to have another delivery on the same street and made a U-turn. She saw the woman again. “At that point, she took a few steps and then fell into the street,” recalled Castillo. Acting swiftly, Castillo turned around, put her hazards on, and positioned her truck in the roadway to divert oncoming traffic. Castillo found the woman, who was in her late 70s, unresponsive. “It was staggeringly hot outside, in the 90s,” she recalled. “I thought she had heat exhaustion. Her breathing was very shallow.” Castillo called 911. She took her mask off and leaned in close to see if the woman was breathing. “COVID never crossed my mind,” she said. “I just wanted to help her.” The woman began to turn a bit blue. Castillo was prepared to do chest compressions, but the 911 dispatcher told her not to; that an ambulance was close by. “When the paramedics arrived, they gave her oxygen and her color started coming back, and her vital signs were very strong,” shared Castillo. Castillo learned the woman had suffered a heart attack that day. A few days later, the family contacted her to let her know the woman had died. She did not have COVID-19. They told Castillo her actions that day gave them the opportunity to gather and be with their mother and grandmother in her last days. Castillo and her husband are independent contractors with TForce Logistics, which is a third-party contracted with Office Depot/Office Max. Before becoming a driver, Castillo went to nursing school. She took a break to work with her husband as a driver. “Being out on the road … I enjoy what I do,” Castillo said. Phil Cicero Phil Cicero, who lives in Cedar Lake, Indiana, and drives for ABF Freight System Inc., is being honored for his actions when he encountered a lost child, stepped in, and safely returned the child to his parent. Cicero had come into Nashville, Tennessee, from Chicago on the morning of July 30, 2020. After leaving his truck at the ABF Freight terminal, he was checking into a hotel for a scheduled rest when a young boy ran past him from the elevator area. “He was maybe 2 or 2 ½ years old,” said Cicero. It was around 8:30 a.m., and the boy was dressed only in underwear. “He ran straight outside and stood by the shuttle van for a moment.” There didn’t seem to be anyone around who knew the child. Concerned, Cicero left his things at the counter and went out to see where the boy was going. “He took off at a dead run,” recalled Cicero. “He was heading straight to the entrance of the hotel, where cars exit and enter.” Without a moment to spare, the ABF driver walked briskly behind the boy, but decided he’d better run to catch up to him. The father of four children, Cicero scooped the child up and brought him back to the hotel. “There were no parents around,” he recalled. He took the boy to the manager’s office, but he was too young to provide them with any information as to where he might belong. “We went back out to the lobby and gave him some water and chips. He wasn’t crying and was seemingly content,” said Cicero. “The manager called the police and they arrived within what seemed to be minutes.” Cicero and the police thought there might be a parent or family upstairs and chalked it up to a miscommunication. Eventually, a father figure came down, along with a sibling, to claim the young child. Cicero said he is thankful things turned out well. Clayvon Daniels Clayvon Daniels, who also drives for ABF Freight System Inc., and lives in Red Oak, Texas, is being honored for stopping to help a driver following a vehicle rollover accident. On the evening of May 31, 2020, Daniels was on Route 12 in Irving, Texas, on his way to San Antonio, when a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed approached on his driver’s side. “I looked in my mirror and saw him kind of weaving,” Daniels shared with TCA. Weather and road conditions were good that evening. “I slowed down and thought, ‘Man, this guy is gonna lose control.’ He came directly in front of my truck and veered all the way to the right.” The driver’s car then hit the concrete median so hard it ricocheted, rolled over, and skidded back across the road. “If I wouldn’t have slowed down, he would have bounced off my truck,” recalled Daniels. Acting swiftly, he stopped in the middle of the highway to ensure other vehicles wouldn’t hit the overturned car. “It shut the whole highway down. About four or five of us stopped and rushed to get the guy out of the car. He was hollering and really bloody,” Daniels shared. “It was something … could have been a whole lot worse.” Emergency vehicles arrived approximately 20 minutes later.” Daniels has been driving for 18 years. “I stop and help when I can. I told my wife I’ve never had an accident, and thank God for that. I hope someone would help me,” he shared. William and Becky Gregory William and Becky Gregory, who live in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and drive for Titan Transfer, are being honored for rescuing and caring for a boy following a two-vehicle crash that killed the child’s father. The Gregorys are owner-operators who team drive. Around 9 p.m. on June 4, 2020, they were westbound on Interstate 40, driving a load to California. William was behind the wheel and Becky was in the sleeper with their dog. Traffic came to a stop, and he moved to the slow lane. “There were four trucks ahead me,” recalled William. “I could see people running with fire extinguishers.” He quickly jumped out and ran up to see if he could help. “Two cars had hit head on,” he shared. The first vehicle was on the shoulder of the road, and the elderly driver was deceased. The other vehicle was on fire. “There were several people using fire extinguishers,” William said. He could see this driver was also deceased. “There was a boy slumped down on the floorboard, but we had to get the flames extinguished before we could get him out,” shared William. The vehicle was crumpled. The group worked quickly. Once the flames were out, one driver pulled up on the dash. The windshield was already gone. William helped the 10-year-old boy out of the wreckage and handed him to another driver, who held him until help arrived. “We sat there and talked to him,” shared William. “He kept asking for his dad. We told him people were taking care of him.” The boy was badly hurt, sustaining many broken bones. Becky was awakened by the couple’s barking dog. “She got out of the truck, wondering what was going on,” said William. “We sat there and talked to the boy to keep him calm until the Life Flight arrived and took him,” William added. The Gregorys learned a couple weeks later the child had several surgeries and was expected to make a full recovery. “I’ve come across some rough ones (accidents),” shared William, “but this was the worst.” William has been driving for 28 years. He and Becky have been married for 33 years and team driving for 20 years. Ken Lukomski Lukomski, who is from South Bend, Indiana, and drives for Veriha Trucking Inc., is being honored for stopping to help at the scene of a serious head-on collision. Lukomski was driving eastbound on Interstate 44 near Marshfield, Missouri, on September 10, 2020, when he came upon a serious accident. An eastbound SUV had driven off the road, broken through the cable barriers in the median, and entered the westbound lanes, where it crashed head-on into another vehicle. Without a moment to spare, Lukomski safely pulled over and jumped out with his gear in hand. He ran over to a small car occupied by a driver and two small children. He pulled a little girl, about 7 years old, out of the vehicle and laid her down in the median. “She was seriously injured and wasn’t breathing,” shared Lukomski. “There was a woman there who began doing CPR, but she was struggling.” Lukomski took over and helped to get the girl breathing again. “I ran back and got the toddler and pulled him out in his car seat,” he said. “He had a small laceration above his eye.” Lukomski then worked with other drivers to extract the driver, an off-duty Webster County sheriff’s deputy, who had sustained grave injuries. “I assured him his kids were okay,” said Lukomski. “He grabbed my hand as they were getting ready to air-evac him and told me to look after his babies.” Unfortunately, the deputy, Sgt. Justin Burney, died from his injuries. His young daughter sustained serious injuries, but is now home with her little brother, who was not seriously injured. “When I found out the father had passed, it choked me up,” shared Lukomski. “We have to have a sense of humanity and compassion for others. As a professional driver, it’s my responsibility to protect others on the road,” he added. “I have the skills and background and training, and I feel it’s a duty to follow through and represent. You hope the outcome will be for the best. But we know there are tragedies out there.” Lukomski has been driving for six years. He grew up in Montana and has worked on a search-and-rescue team. “The greatest high is the achievement element,” he said. “You set out to achieve a goal and you do it. I enjoy being able to help people and make a difference.” Earl Morgan-Heft Earl Morgan-Heft, from Lone Rock, Wisconsin, and a driver for Fortrans Inc., is being honored for freeing a father and son from their burning vehicle following a multiple-vehicle accident. The early morning of June 12, 2020, was an excruciatingly bad one on the northbound roadways of Interstates 90, 94 and 39 near Lodi, Wisconsin. Three traffic accidents, built one upon another, resulted in the loss of several lives and many injuries. The first in the series of crashes occurred at 3:53 a.m. involving a rear-end crash between two semi trucks. Then at 5:11 a.m., another truck slammed into the first crash scene. The third and final crash, at 6:45 a.m., was by far the worst – and Morgan–Heft was a witness to it. Morgan-Heft was northbound from Madison, Wisconsin, and he could see there was an issue up ahead and road closure signs. He slowed down and came to a stop with surrounding traffic. Suddenly he heard a horrific bang. As he checked his left mirror he watched helplessly as a semi truck traveling at highway speeds crashed into a dump truck several vehicles behind him. The crash started a chain reaction involving eight vehicles behind Morgan-Heft. Horrified, he jumped out of his truck. “Cars were smoking,” he recalled. “I saw a pickup that was on fire with survivors in it. I yelled over to them, ‘I’m gonna get you out!’” Without a moment to spare, he started to run back to his truck to fetch a fire extinguisher but could hear popping noises from the pickup. “There was no time,” he said. He rushed to the passenger side of the pickup, where he saw a young teen. His father was in the driver’s seat. “The whole side of the pickup was crushed in and everything was twisted,” recalled Morgan-Heft. He was able to pry open the back door. Two other bystanders came running to help. “We pulled the passenger out through the back door and they got him up near the road while I went around to get the father.” He gave it everything he had and managed to pull the man out and move him away from the vehicle. Minutes later the truck was completely engulfed in flames. Morgan-Heft shared with TCA that the father and son survived. He talked with the man’s wife and learned that, while both sustained serious injuries, they are expected to survive. Morgan-Heft received a letter of thanks from the Wisconsin State Patrol inspector who was at the scene and took Morgan-Heft’s statement. “I wanted to personally thank you for your actions,” the letter read. “To me you are a hero and should feel extremely proud of yourself. You did a fantastic job, and your actions gave two people a second chance at life. To have the bravery to run towards the fire and help is incredible.” Morgan-Heft has been driving for 27 years. For their willingness to assist fellow drivers and motorists, TCA has presented each Highway Angel with a certificate, patch, lapel pin, and truck decals. Their employers have also received a certificate acknowledging their driver as a Highway Angel. To nominate a driver, or to meet additional recipients, visit highwayangel.com.