Earlier in the week, Wyoming Highway Patrol posted a video to Twitter, showing off a terrifying close encounter between an officer and a semi-truck (h/t to Jalopnik). In the clip, an out of control semi truck nearly hits a state trooper, who was saved only by his own quick reflexes.
The incident happened on Interstate 80 near Rawlins, Wyoming, when a trooper was helping a driver that was stuck in the snow, according to KBTX. As the trooper walked back to his patrol car, a semi truck lost control and have swerved around it, potentially unaware of the trooper walking on the other side. At the very, very last second, the officer looks up, notices the truck and makes a couple of kick-slides that would make an offensive tackle proud, which were just enough to narrowly avoid getting hit.
I don’t have to tell you what would have happened to that trooper if he were hit by an out-of-control semi truck at high speed but let’s just all be thankful that didn’t happen.
It’s unclear of the semi truck clipped the patrol car but it gets close enough to shake the car and you can see some sort of debris fly into the road. It even got close enough to the road sign on the side of the road that first responders walking down the median were startled, with one even falling backwards into the snow. After the truck narrowly avoided hitting anything, it drove into the median snow bank and stopped.
According to WHP, no officers or first responders were injured in the event. In fact, without even taking a breath, the trooper that was almost hit immediately began walking over to the stopped truck, as did the other first responders.
I’m not sure how the trooper remained so calm because that’s a full code brown situation. I would have needed to take a few moments to catch my breath, as I realized that I was just a few feet from becoming paste. Thankfully that didn’t happen and credit to the troopers for helping out in such dangerous weather. And if you’re driving in such conditions and see cars stopped, be sure to slow down and be careful so as to avoid incidents like this one.
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