A Utah motorist was nearly killed when a chunk of road surface flew through her windshield.
Hope McCurdy was on her way to work on I-15 when a heavy piece of metal measuring 9 inches by 2 inches flew through the air and smashed through her windshield.
“I didn’t see it from the beginning,” she told the local Fox station KSL“But there was a moment when it did come into my vision.”
Footage from the driver’s dashcam shows a metal object flying off a truck miles ahead of McCurdy’s vehicle and striking the driver’s windshield directly.
McCurdy said it all happened in a split second and at one point she thought the object had stabbed her.
Hope McCurdy was on her daily commute on I-15 when a heavy piece of metal measuring 9 inches by 2 inches flew through the air and smashed through her windshield
Footage from the driver’s dashcam shows a metal object flying from a truck miles in front of McCurdy’s vehicle and striking her driver’s side windshield.
“Flied at me like a ninja star. It went through and hit me in the chest. I thought I was impaled. I didn’t know if I was OK for a second,” she said.
Despite the cuts to her face and chest and the shards of glass piercing her eyes, McCurdy managed to stop.
She showed the highway patrol what she now calls her “survival souvenir.” The object pierced her windshield and landed on her lap.
McCurdy said she was lucky to be alive. If the object had hit the car in a different way, this would have been a different story.
“I was lucky because when it spun through the air, it hit my windshield flat. If it had come this way, I probably wouldn’t be here today,” she said.
McCurdy is shocked but determined to prevent similar incidents. He is imploring drivers to secure their loads and double-check the undersides of their vehicles to prevent similar tragedies from happening to others.
“It’s definitely one of the strangest things that’s ever happened to me and probably one of the most miraculous things that I’ve ever been able to process,” McCurdy said.
Despite the cuts to her face and chest, and the shards of glass piercing her eyes, McCurdy managed to pull her over
Last year, the Utah Highway Patrol responded to a staggering number of traffic hazards – more than 18,000 calls – of which 420 resulted in accidents,
In one particularly unusual case, a driver reported that the bottom of an office chair flew through the windshield.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, loose cargo in passenger vehicles is the cause of most road debris accidents, killing about 730 people each year.