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A driver's car soared 120 feet after vaulting off of a tow truck's ramp in Georgia
Bill ChappellJune 2, 202311:24 AM ET
First responders who were clearing a crash on a Georgia highway witnessed a scary spectacle, when a motorist drove onto a tow truck's lowered ramp at speed.
AP via YouTube / Screenshot by NPR
The wild scene was straight out of an action movie — but it was recorded by a police camera.
A tow truck had lowered its ramp to clear a car crash on a Georgia highway — but then a motorist came from behind and drove onto the ramp at speed. Her sedan launched high into the air, soaring some 120 feet before crashing back down onto the roadway.
The scary spectacle was captured on video by the body camera of a Lowndes County sheriff's deputy who was assisting with the initial crash on the westbound side of Georgia Highway 38, near Valdosta.
A 21-year-old woman from Tallahassee, Fla., was driving the sedan, according to police. She was taken to South Georgia Medical Center with what the incident report describes as suspected serious injuries. The crash took place on May 24, but it attracted new attention after the police video was released.
The footage shows a wrecker sitting in the eastbound left lane of the divided four-lane highway, across from where the deputy and others were working at a crash scene. A Nissan Altima is then seen coming from behind the wrecker on the road, where the posted speed limit is 65 mph. The car then drives onto the wrecker's ramp and vaults over the wrecker's cab.
The crash report diagrams the path a Nissan Altima took as it hit a tow truck and was vaulted 120 feet down the highway by the salvage vehicle's ramp. The sedan twists in the air, landing on its side and roof and rolling after glancing off a car that was traveling in the right lane. The deputy shouts in surprise, then quickly reports the new emergency on his radio as he sprints toward the crash site. The Altima comes to rest right-side up, its front facing back up the road toward the truck.
The tow truck had its emergency lights on as it sat in the left lane, according to the incident report. That detail is not obvious from the video, as the vehicle doesn't have warning lights on its roof.
An emergency worker who had been walking in front of the tow truck in the grassy median narrowly escaped what could have been a serious injury, as the initial collision sent a massive hunk of debris flying past him. A sheriff's deputy who was on foot at the scene was hit by airborne debris and was taken to the hospital as a precaution, according to the report.
Driver whose car vaulted over tow truck says: ‘I thought I was going to die’
VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — A woman whose car was captured on video vaulting into the air over a tow truck and crashing onto a Georgia highway says she’s recovering after spending two weeks in a hospital and undergoing several surgeries.
“I don’t really remember much, but I know that I thought I was going to die,” Tanaijsha Bruton told WALB-TV in an interview Tuesday. “It hurts really, really bad. I felt everything.”
A Lowndes County sheriff’s deputy was responding to an earlier wreck May 24 when his body camera recorded Bruton’s sedan flying into the air after driving up the ramp of a flatbed tow truck, which had stopped in the highway’s opposite left lane.
The car soared 120 feet (37 meters) before landing upside down, according to a police report. It struck another vehicle and tumbled end over end before coming to rest.
“When I go to sleep that’s pretty much what I dream about,” 21-year-old Bruton said. “It just replays over and over.”
Bruton was hospitalized in intensive care in neighboring Florida. She said her internal injuries required at least four surgeries and she’s grateful to have survived.
And she was stunned by the video footage of the crash, once she finally saw it.
“My family didn’t want to show me the video,” Bruton said. “But of course, I’m hardheaded and got on social media.”
