MEXICO — People usually don’t survive collisions with logging trucks, but David Richards of Mexico did last month.

Late Friday afternoon, he was still dealing with injuries from that harrowing incident on March 7, specifically neck pain, a sprained right ankle, hip pain and muscle and body aches.

Richards, 57, who drives for Community Concepts, said he was already collecting disability before the accident, having had three knee surgeries and two herniated discs.

“I hope I’ve got some better days ahead,” Richards said. “This is one of the worst days (for pain).”

On the morning of March 7, Richards had just dropped off a rider and was going to pick up another when the accident occurred.

According to Farmington police officer Darin Gilbert, Keith Roy, 42, of Lancaster, N.H., was driving a 2003 Western Star tractor-trailer loaded with wood east on Route 2.

Roy, who was driving a Richard Carrier Trucking truck out of Skowhegan, attempted to change lanes near Bangor Savings Bank in the Mt. Blue Shopping Plaza and didn’t see Richards slightly ahead of him in a 2012 Hyundai Accent.

The logging truck hooked the bumper of Richards’ car, turning it sideways against the truck’s bumper, and pushed it down the road past a startled Gilbert who was standing on the opposite side of the highway near Burger King.

Roy didn’t see the Hyundai until he was alerted to it by other people while stopped at the traffic light for Walmart.

Gilbert wrote in his accident report that Roy pushed the Hyundai 200 feet, but Richards and a Farmington police sergeant said it was closer to 800 feet based on skid marks at the scene. Richards said he believes Gilbert only estimated the distance from where Gilbert turned and saw the bizarre sight.

“I was already three-quarters of the way on my journey by then,” Richards said.

Richards said that prior to the accident, he was stopped behind a little car in the right lane at the Franklin Memorial Hospital traffic light. The log truck was in the left lane, even with the car ahead of Richards.

When the light turned green, the little car moved forward, the logging truck took a bit to get up to speed and Richards’ Hyundai moved forward.

“Before Bangor Savings Bank, at least, just as I’m about to go by the truck, he turned into my lane and hit the rear quarter of my driver’s side,” Richards said.

He likened the hit to the Pursuit Intervention Technique maneuver that police use to stop a speeding driver by abruptly turning it sideways, causing the driver to lose control and stop.

“He PIT-maneuvered me, so BANG! That turned me sideways, and BOOM, he hit me again and I was right up against his bumper,” Richards said. “I was covered with glass, the door was pushed in, and he was shifting, going faster and he just kept going and going faster.

“I’m just sitting there looking at his radiator with his bumper about at my waist level as I’m sitting down; just looking at the radiator and hearing him shift gears, going faster and faster. It was a hell of a ride.”

Richards said that being slammed against the front of the truck shut off his car. He couldn’t even beep his horn to alert the truck driver, but he wasn’t thinking about that.

“I was just looking at his radiator as he was pushing me down the road and looking at everybody else and wondering, ‘Is he going to stop at the Walmart light, or is he going to go up that hill that goes around a curve, and then I’m going to get flipped over and die?'” he said. “Because if he kept going up that hill where it turned, then he probably would have flipped me over and run me over.”

Richards said he could smell the rubber on his tires burning from being pushed sideways down the road. He expected the car to burst into flames at any moment.

“Then we go by a cop,” Richards said.

Gilbert was standing on the left-hand side of the road giving another driver a ticket.

“He turns and looks, and you can see his amazement in his face and he just let the guy go,” Richards said.

“His back was to us and he just spun around, with everybody coming at us, flashing their headlights and beeping horns and (the trucker) was still going, but he stopped at the Walmart lights, because the light was red,” Richards said.

“I just flew out of the passenger-side door head first as quick as I can, because I can smell my tires and I didn’t know if it was going to catch on fire or what. The cop said to me, ‘Sit down! Sit down! I’ve got an ambulance coming!’ But I’m out of that car.”

Gilbert issued Roy a traffic ticket for failing to yield the right of way.

Richards underwent physical therapy for weeks for his neck, but it ended when the therapist said the injury wasn’t getting better. Now he’s facing injections and a pain clinic. He said X-rays were taken but revealed nothing broken.

He’s still driving for Community Concepts, but not as much as he used to in his nearly four years with them. His insurance company gave him $11,500 for the totaled Hyundai, on which he owed $13,000 and still has to make a payment.

Richards said he gets a little nervous now driving around logging trucks.

“A couple of them have come real close to me,” he said.

So did he get a larger vehicle, one that is more readily seen from the driver’s seat of a tractor-trailer?

Nope.

“I like Hyundais. It survived a logging truck,” Richards said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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