Miraculous escape for Florida trucker

13/01/2014

The Orlando man was at an Indiana truck stop on Monday morning of last week, fixing his brakes., when the massive truck shifted, pinning him to the freezing ground. Calls from his wife caused his phone to vibrate and fall out of his pocket and he was then able to voice prompt a call for help.

Tim Rutledge’s brakes had been frozen by the historic -40F wind chills. While trying to fix them in the snow, he became pinned to the frozen pavement under the lorry.

“It caught my left side and my left arm was pinned by the axle of the truck,” he recalls. “As I got colder and colder, I was yelling but nobody could hear me.” The Arctic winds froze his body to the ground. The virtually-deserted Pilot station was in the grip of the Polar Vortex and locals had sought shelter indoors.

The driver’s phone vibrated in his pocket but he couldn’t reach it. The vibrations eventually made the phone fall out of the desperate haulier’s pocket.

“When the phone did finally come out, it came in front of me instead of behind me,” he said.

He was able to use the phone's voice activation function to get the phone to make a call, but he wasn't sure who to... It turned out to be his employers, who rang 911. After a day and at death's door, the man was saved.