A driver expresses gratitude for her safety after a mattress unexpectedly flew off a truck and nearly struck her vehicle while she was on a Texas highway.
Footage shared with Storyful revealed the shocking incident where a mattress, secured to the back of a pickup truck, suddenly detached and soared over Tina Callahan’s vehicle. The mattress came loose when the truck switched to the left lane on the I-10 highway.
“As they pulled into the left lane, I saw the mattress wobble and then all of a sudden, it just took off,” Callahan recalled to CBS Austin.
The video shows her shifting to the far right lane in an attempt to dodge the mattress that flew over her vehicle. She expressed her relief to the outlet when the item narrowly missed her car.
“I’m very thankful it flew past me,” she told the outlet. “I was thinking to myself, this is definitely going to hit my car and I kind of actually ducked a little bit in my seat.”
Callahan informed the San Antonio Express that she was unaware of the final location of the detached mattress or whether it impacted any vehicles. She informed CBS Austin that the pickup truck, which was originally transporting the mattress, continued on for another half mile before she could no longer see the vehicle.
“It’s crazy to me that they wouldn’t secure it, even just to keep their own stuff because it’s the stuff they own,” Callahan told CBS Austin.
A national study by AAA in 2016 revealed that over 200,000 crashes occurred due to debris on U.S. roadways in the previous four years. The company highlighted that “road debris” has led to around 39,000 injuries and over 500 fatalities from 2011 to 2014.
The research revealed that almost 37 percent of fatalities in road debris incidents were due to drivers swerving to miss an object, and that crashes involving debris are significantly more frequent on Interstate highways.
Doug Shupe, a representative for AAA Texas, informed CBS Austin that failing to properly secure road debris may result in fines between $25 and $500, and if someone’s debris leads to serious injury, they could potentially face imprisonment.
“You know, either tie your items directly to the vehicle itself, make sure that it’s not loose and able to come undone, but then also use some type of tarp or heavy netting,” he told the outlet.