Many serious accidents happen in an instant and without warning. Rarely do victims have a chance to spot a pending collision, let alone enough time to attempt to avoid serious injury. Under rare circumstances, a 30-year-old FedEx employee was able to avoid what could have been life-threatening injuries this week in a commercial vehicle accident. His 29-year-old co-worker was not as fortunate. 

According to an Ohio Highway Patrol trooper, the two men had been riding in their FedEx shipping truck on Tuesday afternoon just east of Toledo. At approximately 1:35 p.m., the two employees observed a dump truck driver lose control of his vehicle. Noticing that the dump truck carrying heavy asphalt was about to tip, the driver of the FedEx truck slammed on the breaks, and the two men attempted to leap from their vehicle. 

The 30-year-old passenger was able to leap clear before the 67,000 pound dump truck completely tipped over. The driver of the FedEx truck could not do the same and was injured in the collision. The FedEx employee was airlifted to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center with critical injuries. Approximately five hours after his arrival, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed that he had been taken to the neural step-down unit.

Trooper Kent Jeffries confirmed that the 39-year-old driver of the dump truck had swerved over to the right side of the road. In an attempt to pull back onto the road, the dump truck driver over-corrected. In doing so, the weight of the vehicle caused it to roll over.

In trucking accident cases such as this one, an attorney will investigate the collision with an eye for negligence. The attorney will answer questions — such as whether or not it was only the driver’s actions that played a role in causing the injury or if the vehicle was overloaded — in order to maximize the compensation a victim may be eligible for.

Source: The News-Messenger, “FedEx, dump trucks collide on Ohio 19,” Catharine Hadley, Sept. 11, 2013