The Aftermath

We arrived pretty late at the orientation center last night, after being delayed by the accident I saw that routed us in another direction, so I went right to sleep as soon as the truck stopped moving. This morning, I woke Ed up so he'd have time for a little breakfast before spending the rest of the morning in his class. I was still tired, so I decided to stay in bed a few hours more.

When I woke up, the first thing I did was check the news online for information on the accident. This is what I found, including the photos below. The tragedy is that Alejandro Raya, the driver of the tanker, died. He was 45 years old with three children, ages 21, 14 and 12. The driver of the car that killed him, a 23 year old who had ten beers before heading home from the bar, lived. How's that for complete cosmic bullshit? It ALWAYS seems to be the case that the person who caused the accident is the person who survived the accident. And in cases of crashes between cars and big trucks, statistics show that 75% of the time, the accident is the fault of the passenger car, NOT the truck.

Mr. Raya was just doing his job that night, likely not far from home since he lived in Fort Worth. And because someone decided to drink too much and take to the highway, he lost his life. Personally, I don't know HOW you get on an interstate going the wrong way, drunk or not. And I'm sure that 23 year old's life is going to suck from this point forward. But at least he has his life.

Here's a picture of the firefighters tackling the burning truck. As you can see, the tires have burned off and all that's left of the trailer portion is the ladder that allows the driver to climb up to the top of the tanker: More pictures from the scene can be found here.


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1 YEAR AGO: More Than Halfway To A World Record
2 YEARS AGO: When You Need Your Hump Fixed, This Is The Place
3 YEARS AGO: The Flight, The Hotel, The Walk And The Sleep Deprivation
4 YEARS AGO: A Lot Of Beauty, A Little Citrus And A Mini Moo
5 YEARS AGO: Shorn