story

“As far as The MED, there’s just no way I could have survived without them” said Bill Bridwell.

Accident on Highway 8
Truck Driver Bill Bridwell Survives Because of The MED

Grenada , MS (August 2005) – “I’ve done forty eight states and Canada”, that’s how Bill Bridwell describes his 30 years as a truck driver. With his experience, hauling a load of mattress covers from New Orleans to Houston was just another day on the job.

He had left New Orleans and arrived in Durant, Mississippi when he decided to call it a night. The next morning, Bridwell was up and at it again, heading toward Grenada, Mississippi just at dawn’s light. “I remember running along and everything was just fine” said Bridwell. “Then I started hearing some popping noises and I didn’t know what it was.” To be safe, Bridwell decided to pull over. When he went to touch the brakes he said, “I didn’t have any, because the truck was in the air.”

All 18 wheels and a trailer full of mattress covers were airborne on Highway 8. What Bridwell didn’t know was that a car traveling on Highway 8 earlier that morning had hit a utility pole, knocking it half way over. The top of Bridwell’s trailer got caught in the hanging utility cables forcing the truck into the air. The truck turned on its side, landed on an embankment and slid down into a valley. The cab of the truck collapsed and Bridwell was propelled through the floorboard of the cab and into the engine block. When emergency crews arrived, they had to extract Bridwell by using a back hoe and a wench to split the truck cab in half.

“All the time they were working on me, I could hear Wings in the back” said Bridwell. And indeed, Hospital Wing, the helicopter transport service for The MED, was sitting on Highway 8 ready for Bridwell.

Bridwell suffered a head injury but most severe were the injuries to his legs. One leg was amputated at the scene in order to extract him. Doctors later said the burns to his legs from the engine block actually saved his life. The heat from the engine block cauterized the wounds and kept him from bleeding to death.

“As far as The MED – there’s just no way I could have made it without them” said Bridwell. “The facilities around the small towns like this, they don’t have much. The condition I was in, I am thoroughly convinced that without it (The MED), I wouldn’t be here today.”