Sunshine: December 2021

We were traveling East on I-40 in Asheville NC at the I-26 interchange at 2:10 pm when traffic slowed at the exit. We were in the deceleration lane in stop and go traffic, with a line of cars ahead of us and behind us. The line of traffic started to move, and so did we. A gap behind us opened because the semi behind us didn’t take off as fast as we did. Another semi was in the slow lane passing the stopped cars and decided to enter the deceleration lane to exit onto I-26. I saw him make the lane change looking in his passenger side mirror. As he was making his lane change traffic ahead of me stopped again. When he looked back at the brake lights he started applying the brakes. I saw him coming! I had time to say “NO, NO, NO!” and he hit us! He may have been going 35 – 40 mph when he rear ended us. Kathy had time to look up from her phone as she was looking for a hotel in the Columbia, SC area, our intended stopping point for the night. The semi was “Rolling heavy” according to the driver while talking to me after the accident. We never heard brakes or tires squealing from his attempt to stop. When he hit us, mom and Kathy were very surprised because I didn’t have time to say what was about the happen, nor could I find the words. It happened in slow motion, but very quickly. Oscar, mom’s cat, in his carrier, came up onto the center console with very wide eyes. The impact drove us into a small white Honda Civic driven by a lawyer on his way to Brevard NC for a court hearing. The white Honda was driven into the semi trailer in front of him damaging both the front end and rear end of his car.

When the truck came to a stop and everyone regained their senses the cab was started to smoke and mom and Kathy thought we were on fire. So Kathy and I got out and started looking around to see where the smoke was coming from. There was nothing under the truck smoking but it was coming from the air bags in the B pillar, the post between the front door and the rear door. At the base of the seat belts there are small air bags and both the drivers and passengers seat belts were locked up no longer able to retract or advance. The smoke soon cleared. After checking to see that everyone was OK physically, I proceeded to check the other vehicles and drivers. But before I could exit the vehicle the OnStar operator activated, informing us that we had been in a wreck and asking several questions. The police arrived shortly thereafter and collected our documents and had us move 3 of the vehicles involved in the wreck off the ramp and down to a safer shoulder just down I-26. The semi that hit us was leaking antifreeze from a hole in its radiator that my receiver hitch made upon contact, he had to be towed from the scene.

While we waited on the police officer to complete his report, I talked with the Honda driver and the semi driver that he contacted. Kathy was making phone calls to get us a place to stay close by and trying to contact USAA to report the accident, find a dealer with a body shop and one or two other things. Our life360 app that each of us have on our phones notified each other that we had been in an accident, cool feature by the way.

Around 4 pm we were released by the police officer and we drove the truck to the hotel that Kathy had reserved while setting on the side of the road. She had also rented a truck from Enterprise so we could finish the journey home in the morning. Enterprise was less than a one mile walk from the hotel, which made it easy in the morning for me to walk down and get the truck.

Once we were at the hotel and unloaded, I called USAA to report the accident. While on the phone with them going over the details of the damage to the truck the representative said the truck would more than likely be totaled because one air bag had went off, we didn’t realize yet that both seat belt air bags had deployed making the belts useless. The USAA representative was very helpful and great to work with.