TONEY — Terry Reavis, a truck driver from Toney, has been named a Highway Angel by the Truckload Carriers Association for stopping to help injured passengers n a wreck last month.
The incident occurred Feb. 19 around 2:45 p.m. on I-95 in Brunswick, Ga., as Reavis, saw a pickup truck on the shoulder of the interstate backing up and then driving backward across three lanes of traffic, according to a news release.
An SUV T-boned the pickup truck, taking a nosedive so hard the rear wheels came off the ground and another car went underneath it.
A woman from the SUV was ejected through the windshield.
According to the news release, Reavis, who drives for Maverick Transportation out of North Little Rock, Ark., was one of the first people on the scene and quickly hit the record button on his dashboard camera and pulled over.
He helped pull three children from the SUV and then focused on the woman who had been ejected through the windshield.
A trained first responder, Reavis stymied some of the bleeding and kept the woman calm, holding her in his lap until emergency personnel arrived.
“It was the worst wreck I’ve seen in my 27 years as a trucker,” said Reavis. “I stopped because it’s what I was taught …
“Treat people the way you would want to be treated.”
The release said, because of Reavis’s quick action, there were no fatalities in the wreck.
Since the Highway Angels program’s inception in August 1997, nearly 1,400 professional truck drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels for exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage displayed while on the job.
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