I had my closest near death experience involving this situation.
Memorial Day 2019, I was on my way home from a chase in Kansas, heading east on I-80 near Grand Island around 11pm.
There was light rain/drizzle falling but nothing heavy enough to obstruct my visibility so I was cruising along at 80 mph.
I noticed a car with its hazards on pulled over on the right shoulder so I moved over to the left lane. As I came up on the vehicle, I remember taking one last glance over and at the last second out of the corner of my eyes ahead of me on the road I saw something.
IT WAS A COMPLETELY JACKKNIFED SEMI BLOCKING BOTH LANES OF EASTBOUND TRAFFIC!
Either it had no lights on or bc of the way it was laying with the cab facing towards the right shoulder and the trailer back across the road with its underside facing oncoming traffic, I couldn’t see any lights. In fact I didn’t see it at all until my low beam lights shined on the semi at the last moment as I had glanced over at the car on the shoulder.
My reaction to seeing whatever was in the road (I don’t think I knew it was a semi at first) was to slam on my brakes and jerk my steering wheel to the right.
I somehow managed to parallel the tractor trailer by mere feet as I headed to towards the ditch at a still high rate of speed.
To add another level to this, the car that was pulled over with its hazards on was actually another person who apparently must’ve had stopped to check on the semi driver, because as I flew towards the ditch I had to thread the needle between the semi and car AND THE DRIVER OF THE CAR THAT WAS WALKING ON THE SHOULDER OF THE INTERSTATE BACK TO THEIR VEHICLE.
I can still remember basically seeing the person fly by the passenger side of my car just as I was going into the ditch.
Besides getting lucky enough to see the semi at the last second to be able to swerve just in time and just missing possibly killing the person walking on the shoulder, I was also lucky enough to hit a flatter spot off the interstate when I went into the ditch. There were no signs, guard rails, or trees. I was able to keep the car under control and bc I didn’t want to possibly get stuck in the ditch, once I had everything under control, I turned the wheel to the left and kept driving in the ditch long enough to get past the semi and then drive back out onto the interstate.
I remember being basically in shock at very nearly dying and so I just kept driving. Probably 30 seconds later I let out a loud scream. I remember seeing the emergency vehicles responding from the other side of the interstate about that moment.
I proceeded to call my wife, parents, and my 2 best friends to tell them what happened.
I made it to York, NE where I finally stopped at a gas station and proceeded to cry for probably 15 minutes straight. I then drove the rest of the way home to Omaha.
I remember having chest tightness and pain for the next 24-36 hours afterwards but my doctor felt it was just the “shock” of the experience.
You know why the semi was jackknifed? A story in the Grand Island paper came out a day or two later. The truck driver swerved to miss a freaking deer and rolled the semi and trailer.
Sorry for the long detailed post and the capital letters. It helps me get through typing out that experience. I very likely should be dead/ and or could have killed or seriously injured that person walking on the shoulder too.
Probably a bit cheesy to some, but this picture I took of all the stuff on the floor of my car that was sitting on my seat before I had to slam on the brakes and swerve so hard. I can still hear that sound and see the underneath of the semi trailer.
It's no joke, at least three of these appear to be related to animal collisions or trying to avoid them:
I put together this graphic showing all storm chasing fatalities (15) in the history of the activity: These occurred in the following incidents: April 26, 1984: In the first "in the field" chaser death, Christopher Phillips was a 21-year old OU meteorology student from Englewood, NJ who died...
stormtrack.org
