Beer truck rolls onto car injuring woman

Last update: October 23, 2006 - 9:23 AM

Debra Johnson said she thought it was "a dream" when she saw a white semitrailer truck begin to tip toward her Sunday morning as she drove along Interstate Hwy. 35W in Richfield.

Then it became a nightmare.

The truck, loaded with thousands of beer cans, continued tipping and rolled onto Johnson's car, flattening it and trapping her inside.

"It was like being in a dream," she told KSTP-TV. "It was so unreal.. There was a truck...and all I saw was a white truck, the back part of the truck just falling over."

It smashed her car and flatted her seat pinning her inside.

"This arm was completely crushed," she told the station. "This elbow protected my organs. This is what kept an entire truck from crushing the rest of my body. But then what happened was a hand came through a hole in the glass, and grabbed my hand."

Passersby, including Michael Denoma, ran to help Johnson.

"A couple of us scrambled to the top and were able to drag the driver out," he told KSTP.

According to the State Patrol, the 30-year-old driver of the semitrailer truck was going too fast when he hit the curve at I-35W and the Crosstown. The load in the trailer shifted causing the trailer to tip over and spill thousands of cans of Bud Lite beer onto the highway.

The accident closed the northbound lanes for five hours. KARE-11 reported.

The driver escaped with only minor injuries and will be ticketed in the accident, according to KARE-11.

Johnson is reportedly hospitalized but appears to be doing well and says her survival was a miracle, KSTP reported.

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