There’s one thing that will pop into the minds of my fellow millennials when they first see this video: Final Destination 2. While this isn’t exactly like the famous log scene from the 2003 movie, it still involves lumber falling off of a delivery truck and smashing into other cars. Fortunately, also unlike the movie, no one was hurt when an avalanche of falling wood swept a car away on I-83 in Pennsylvania.
Uber driver Derek Gooderham was driving his passenger on I-83 when he and his dashcam saw a tractor-trailer crash on I-81, on the bridge above. As a result, its entire load of lumber was dumped down the embankment onto I-83 and it swept a car (a 2013-2016 Chevy Malibu?) away in what looked like a tidal wave of 2x4s. The avalanche of lumber hits the car and carries it across an entire lane, the shoulder, and into the adjacent embankment.
Thankfully, it seems the driver of the smashed car is OK. “I just saw him come out of the car,” Gooderham told ABC27. “He was staggering up, raised his hand up, which I was assuming he was signaling that he was okay.” Additionally, the PennDOT didn’t report any injuries from the incident.
While the crash into the embankment wasn’t all that violent, getting hit at speed by falling 2x4s has devastating potential. Lumber like that can easily go through car windows at such speeds, so the driver was lucky they weren’t hit by a board or ten smashing through the passenger windows or even the windshield. I’m sure they walked away pretty shaky, though, as a sudden wave of wood pushing you across the highway seems alarming, to say the least.
Fortunately, only a few other cars were involved in the lumber avalanche but none were seriously affected by it. The video shows a pickup truck (possibly a Chevy Avalanche?) ahead of the impacted car that could have caught a few stray splinters but it’s hard to tell. If it did, the driver kept on driving anyway. And Gooderham was far back enough that he was able to stomp his brakes and avoid the falling lumber altogether. So only one car was involved and no one was injured in this strange, sudden, and incredibly dangerous accident.
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