A truck driver who rescued a family of six from a smashed minivan has been named the 30th Goodyear Highway Hero.
Chosen from four finalists, Jason Harte of Rogers, Arkansas accepted the 30th Goodyear North America Highway Hero Award during the Mid-America Trucking Show recently.
Harte, who works for Missoula, Montana-based Sammons Trucking, was driving down an Interstate in July 2012 when he saw a speeding pickup truck push a minivan off the road and slam into another car, pushing it to the highway median.
Bystanders helped the car’s driver while Harte approached the van. He saw a man and woman holding a six-month-old baby, and they were frantically trying to get out of the vehicle. Harte also noticed that three other children were trapped inside the van. He dialed 911, helped the man, woman, and baby out of the van, and then rescued the most accessible of the three other children.
As the Highway Hero Award winner, Harte receives a special Highway Hero ring, a $5,000 cash prize, and other items.
He and three other truck drivers were selected as finalists for the Goodyear Highway Hero Award. Other finalists include: Christopher Burgess, an independent truck driver from Ravenna, Ohio; Chad Dickey of Wadena, Minnesota, who drives for Tony’s Transfer; and David Williams of Angier, North Carolina, who drives for Schneider National.
After picking up 15 tons of sand, Burgess was driving a truck down a steep hill in Akron, Ohio, when its brakes failed. Fighting to keep the truck under control, Burgess waved his arms and honked the vehicle’s horn while it sped down the hill toward a busy intersection at an estimated 50 miles per hour. He maneuvered the truck through the intersection, missing both pedestrians and other automobiles. He swerved between two buildings full of people and steered toward bushes and trees at the rear of the property, behind which was a river bank. The truck hit a tree and dropped into the river below. Burgess died in the accident. Dickey was driving near Chattanooga, Tennessee late at night when he came across vehicle debris, including a fuel tank, scattered across the highway. Dickey stopped his truck, grabbed his flashlight, and went to investigate. He spotted some tracks on the pavement and followed them to a nearby ditch, where he found the remains of an 18-wheeler, including the exposed driver’s seat to which Lewis Boyd, another trucker, was strapped. Boyd had suffered a massive gash in his leg and was passing in and out of consciousness due to rapid blood loss. Dickey applied a tourniquet to Boyd’s leg for 30 minutes while keeping him alert until rescue personnel arrived. They airlifted Boyd to a local hospital, where he spent more than a month recovering from his injuries.
Williams was driving down an interstate in Wilmington, North Carolina when he spotted a disabled car ahead of him. It was raining heavily, and the car had spun around, facing oncoming traffic. Williams stopped his truck and raced to the car. He placed safety cones around the car and began directing traffic away from it. Suddenly, Williams spotted a pickup truck approaching at high speed. He jumped out of the way to avoid being crushed by the pickup, which slammed into the back of his rig and burst into flames. The pickup’s driver escaped while Williams pulled the truck’s passenger out of the burning vehicle. He then helped extinguish the flames that had engulfed the pickup.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2013, the Highway Hero Award honors professional truck drivers who put themselves in harm’s way to help others as they travel the highways and roads of North America.