adam1991
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Registered: Aug 2001
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More on the cement truck that crushed the Ody
the article in today's paper, along with the photo; it pretty much screams "just buy a Honda":
There was little reason for hope
When cement mixer hit van, all appeared lost
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Dean Narciso
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
(photo caption: The Berridges’ van is crushed by a toppled cement truck at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Summit View Road. Parents Tim and Amanda, as well as their three children, were in the van when the accident occurred.)
Officer Andrew Wuertz saw the concrete mixer lock its brakes, spin sideways and roll onto the van.
He ran to the steaming wreckage, the flattened van.
"All I could see was his arm sticking out from under the baby seat," he recalled. "It looked like he was crushed to half his size.
"There was no doubt in my mind that the baby in the child seat was dead. If he was crying, I couldn’t hear it."
Wuertz was off duty April 13 and driving with his wife. They were two cars behind the truck on Riverside Drive that was approaching Summit View Road when he saw the crash and stopped to help.
The van’s front doors could be opened, but from there back, it had been crushed. Not wanting the parents to see what he had seen, Wuertz quickly ushered them to the other side of the van where others consoled them.
"I turned to my wife and said, ‘Call 911 and tell them it’s a fatal and a baby.’ "
The trip from Whitehall to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is a familiar one for Tim and Amanda Berridge, and it’s one that their three children always relished.
Inside the van, their 9-month-old son slept in the child seat behind Tim, who was driving. The toddler’s head rolled gently to the side as the car came to rest at the light.
April 13 was Tim’s day off, and he wanted to spend it with his family.
They packed a picnic lunch. The kids were excited.
The couple’s 2-year-old daughter wasn’t feeling well, and Amanda had turned in her seat to comfort the girl and hold her hand as the van neared Summit View Road.
That’s when she saw the concrete truck coming.
"Oh, please, Jesus, no," she said.
The initial jolt knocked the Honda Odyssey into the intersection. Tim gripped the wheel and forced the brake to the floor.
"I knew it was a very bad accident when the sound didn’t stop," he recalled of shearing metal and the crush of noise. "The crash didn’t stop."
Tim is a cargo airplane pilot who is a calm, vigilant driver, especially with his family. But when the truck nearly full of concrete flattened his van, he became inconsolable. Wuertz, an Upper Arlington police officer, worked desperately with others to pry at the metal roof, managing to force the driver’s seat forward.
And then they heard the cry.
"Miracle by God, they moved the seat a little. He started crying, and they pulled him out, and he wasn’t even bleeding," Wuertz said of the Berridge’s 9-month-old son.
"From going to thinking I’d see a bloody pulp to being unscathed, it was a miracle," Wuertz said. "It was an absolute miracle."
Tim "was no doubt in shock," Wuertz said. "He was just crying and shaking, a good 45 minutes after they brought the baby out."
The miracles were just beginning.
A side window, spiderwebbed with cracks, had fallen on the couple’s 4-year-old daughter. She managed to unbuckle her seat belt and crawl through an opening, bleeding from a few cuts.
And it appears that Amanda might have saved her 2-yearold daughter by reaching from the front seat to comfort her. When the truck hit, Amanda jerked the girl toward her as the roof collapsed with enough force to bend the seat’s headrest 6 inches forward, Tim said.
The Berridges feel a deep thanks to God. None of them was seriously hurt.
"All these people are here to help, but they can’t pull that metal off of my baby," Amanda recalled thinking. "I’m going to need a higher power."
Tim credits Jesus Christ with watching over the family.
"His protection was manifested in the events."
They also want to thank strangers.
The smallest acts of kindness in such a situation mean so much, he said.
A woman cleaned concrete from one of the girls. Another cradled Amanda while she waited for a helicopter to take her and the children to a hospital.
"It’s amazing to see people come together and work together the way they did that day," Wuertz said.
Dublin police charged Bradley Conkey, the driver of the concrete mixer, with failing to keep a safe distance, a minor misdemeanor. Now, his attention to driving will change forever, he said yesterday.
"I’ve been kind of scanning the horizon a whole lot more, just watching everything." "You always dread the fact, the possibility, when you’re on the road all day long," he said. "You just hope it never happens, especially when innocent bystanders feel the result."
Tim’s driving also has changed. He often glances in the rearview mirror.
Even his children look around more when they’re in the car, he said.
"They say things like, ‘There’s a cement truck,’ and ‘That truck won’t hit us, will it?’ "
dnarciso@dispatch.com
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OdyClub Forums > General Forums > General Discussion > More on the cement truck that crushed the Ody
04-22-2006 02:36 PM
One very lucky family...
