A Michigan man who was nearly impaled by a steel beam owes his life to an unlikely shield — his steering wheel.
Johnnie Lowe was driving a 26-foot box truck to Lansing for his employer DNC Logistics when a flatbed truck suddenly switched lanes in front of him on Thursday.
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A steel beam attached to the truck ahead of him got loose, sliding towards Lowe’s vehicle and piercing through his windshield, straight towards his body.
DNC Logistics shared the shocking photos on its official Facebook page. “Our driver, Johnnie, had a close call with a steel beam coming right for him,” the company wrote.
“I saw something fly off of his truck, and I thought it was a plank off a privacy fence, like a piece of wood … And then I saw it was a big piece of steel,” Lowe told CNN.
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He braced himself when he saw the beam coming towards him, with glass spreading everywhere as it came careening through his windshield. Miraculously, his steering wheel stopped it from impaling him.
His life was saved by a mere six inches.
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“I could feel my face was bleeding,” he said. “Thank God, I had one little cut on my face, but I’m staring at a steel beam about half a foot from my chest.”
Lowe immediately pulled over to call 911 and his boss and took pictures of the shocking scene.
Though the driver jumped to action in the immediate aftermath, he barely took a moment to realize what had happened to him.
“I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I was alive.”
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