Not Just Another Day Part Two

Elizabeth slowly came to a stop on the right shoulder and stared through the fog trying in vain to distinguish where the shape of one car ended and another began. The devastation was inconceivable and seemed to rise up before her out of the mist.

She set her brakes and stepped out onto the running board of her truck in stunned amazement to see what appeared to be cars, too numerous to count, propped up at the craziest of angles and facing about in every direction. Several tractor trailers were also involved, some of which had been jackknifed in an obvious attempt to prevent even greater injury to those vehicles already wrecked.

Elizabeth checked her cell phone but didn't have any service this far out of town. She wondered if any one could have service up here in these mountains. Turning the dial to channel nine on her CB, she keyed up and asked if anyone was monitoring but got no response. She waited a second then tried again.

Giving up on the emergency channel, she turned the radio back up to channel nineteen and asked for someone to get emergency personnel sent out to them and gave the location. When asked what she would need, Elizabeth simply asked them to send everyone: fire, rescue, heavy duty wreckers and state police.

A slight breeze blew the fog into motion and when it lifted slightly Elizabeth could see even more of what lay before her. There must have been sixty or seventy vehicles involved stretched out as far as the eye could see and Liz sucked in a sharp breath at the enormity of it all.

Everywhere she looked people were walking from car to car checking up on the occupants to see if anyone needed medical assistance. Some motorists were standing about in total confusion or stunned disbelief at the circumstance in which they found themselves. She felt bad for those who now suffered for a split second of inattention. Elizabeth knew well how quickly accidents happened and had learned to read the road and use extreme caution in bad weather. But she had spent most of her life on the road and routinely drove more miles in one year, than most of these folks would drive in their entire lives.

Looking up the road, she could see where an upright semi came to rest in the median, as if the driver had intentionally chosen that spot as a perfect place to park. Elizabeth climbed down off of her truck, grabbed her flashlight and began walking towards the semi. The closer she got the more she realized that the truck and trailer had not escaped completely unscathed. A ten foot piece of guardrail snaked out from behind the semi like a serpents tail with more than twenty feet of it's former length entangled the rear axle of the trailer. The truck had gouged a trail into the soft earth and it amazed Elizabeth that the driver hadn't rolled the rig over.

Shining her flash light on the back doors of the trailer she saw the unmistakable logo that identified this trailer as belonging to Stacy. A sense of panic overtook Elizabeth and she all but ran up the length of the trailer to check on her friend. The tractor sat at an odd angle with the corner of the bunk slightly crushed. It was obvious that the trailer had swung around then righted itself again before being driven into the median. The drivers side door hung askew of it's hinges and Liz swung the beam of her flashlight into the cab and called out to Stacy. She called a second time but got no response and walked around to the front of the truck. The cloying blanket of fog undulated before her in the beam of her flashlight as she searched for any sign of the woman who she had so recently met.

She spotted Stacy a short distance away standing over someone lying on the ground. Elizabeth stopped walking and stood there in numbed silence and watched as Stacy unfolded a bedsheet and draped it gently over whoever was lying there. Stacy stood there suddenly feeling the weight of the experience descend on her. Her knees turned to jelly and she sank to the ground.

Elizabeth approached her and knelt down until she was at Stacy's eye level. "Stacy?"

"I gotta get out of here, Liz." Stacy mumbled when Elizabeth put a hand on the younger woman's shoulder.

"Where you gonna go, Stacy?" Liz questioned softly. Both women turned in unison at the sound of tires squealing to see yet another car slam into whoever was at the back of the pileup. It was a horrendous sound and seemed to goad Elizabeth into action.

"I have to figure out how to stop the oncoming traffic. We have to warn them. Grab your triangles and come with me." Elizabeth started off in the direction of the most recent collision.

Stacy got up and ran over to her tractor. Opening the side box, she yanked her triangles out, quickly pulled them out of the box, dropping one in her haste and took off after Elizabeth.

When Stacy had caught up to her friend, she handed Liz one of the triangles and together they assembled them and began walking down the road. They each took one lane of the two lane highway, turned west and started walking.

Using their flashlights and waving the triangles back and forth, Liz and Stacy got the oncoming cars to stop for them. The two women would persuade each one of the drivers in turn, to move to the right shoulder explaining that they needed to keep the roadway clear for emergency personnel. Each driver was told to put their hazard lights on and stay in their vehicles unless they could provide medical assistance.

Every time someone stopped, Stacy and Liz would proceed to the rear of that vehicle and together continued walking down the road. One by one, the cars stopped and one by one, the drivers would do as instructed without question. In retrospect, once they had time to think about the whole experience, it would amaze both women that anyone had listened to them at all.

By the time they heard a siren wailing in the distance, the line of stopped traffic was spread out over a half mile and entire area was lit up with a multitude of bright red and amber flashing lights. It was a surreal image whose jagged edges were somehow made softer by the heavy blanket of fog which hadn't yet begun to burn off.

Elizabeth watched as a police car approached them. The trooper rolled down his window as he came to a stop. "What are you two doing?" he asked, as if he couldn't quite believe his own eyes.

"Just trying to keep people from blocking the lane, Sir. You have a straight shot all the way up to the scene." Elizabeth replied. She was hoping he would understand what she had been trying to do.

"Did you do this all by yourself?" he asked curious.

She looked back at the cars parked neatly on the shoulder and shook her head. "No sir, this is Stacy. She helped me," Elizabeth pointed towards the woman standing at her side.
"Well, I appreciate what you've done here tonight. I really do, but I have a few questions I'd like to ask before I give you a ride back up the hill." The trooper looked in his mirror as a state car pulled up behind him with his lights flashing. The driver of the second cruiser paused only briefly before driving around the first car and went on down the road with his strobe lights flashing eerily in the fog.

Elizabeth and Stacy stood there talking to the officer about the accident and what they had seen or hadn't seen in Elizabeth's case. While they were talking, the officer filled out a report, writing everything down word for word. In that time, several ambulances sped by as well as a heavy duty wrecker and two more police cars.

Elizabeth looked at the long line of cars disappearing into the fog. She knew what waited for her at the end of this line and she wasn't quite sure she wanted to go back there just yet.

The loud "whoop whoop" of another siren behind her made Elizabeth whirl around and the officer ordered her to get into the car. She opened the back door and climbed in and slid across the seat to make room for Stacy who closed the door behind her.

The officer drove slowly up the line as the mist closed in around them. She watched as they drove past the vague outline of cars sitting in the silence while the occupants stared back at them trying to imagine the horrors which waited ahead.

"What made you two take the initiative and get everyone on the shoulder?" the officer asked, watching Elizabeth in the rear view mirror. "It's not an easy thing to do, trust me, I've tried."

"I don't know." Elizabeth responded. "I think I read about it being done once and it just seemed like a good idea." She grew quiet and the officer decided to let it go for now.

He knew for sure that what these two women had done was nothing short of extraordinary. He had decided as he drove past the endless row of cars parked neatly on the shoulder, that if it was in his power, he would make sure they would get the recognition they deserved.

Emergency personnel from the surrounding counties in both Pennsylvania and Maryland, responded to the call for assistance. By two-thirty the next afternoon, no trace remained of the pileup except a few black skid marks from some of the seventy-three cars and trucks involved in the accident.

Three weeks later, having seen the accident as a sign, Elizabeth gave up driving a semi and decided to give retirement a chance. She went on a cruise to Alaska, but got tired of the multitudes going everywhere she went. She jumped ship, rented a car and just drove around without any specific plan in mind and had the time of her life. She ended up going back to Alaska the very next year and stayed.

While Stacy's truck was in the body shop, word got out concerning the part she played on the night of the accident. The safety department reassessed their original ruling of calling her jacknife, a preventable accident, and instead gave her a new tractor. Although Stacy never did find out who had called her company to tell them of her actions, she had always assumed it was either Elizabeth or the trooper. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she accepted the new truck with enthusiasm and gratitude.

Eight months later, Elizabeth McPherson and Stacy Johnson were honored as Highway Angels by the Truckload Carriers Association.