A Canadian ice road trucker is recovering from serious injuries after risking his life by crashing his truck to save a family of five, including two children.

Twenty-six year old Yellowknife trucker John Cleary was en route to Edmonton on Friday. As he crossed a bridge covered in black ice, a pickup truck hauling a trailer approached in the opposite direction.

The pickup’s trailer started to fishtail and Cleary said that he could see the look of terror on the faces of the people in the front seats as the out of control vehicle started to swerve toward his lane. Cleary later said that he looked up at photos of his young daughter pinned up inside the cab and then made the choice to swerve, crashing his truck into the guardrail.

Said Cleary’s grandmother, “He had no idea who was in that other vehicle. He knew it would be so much more disastrous if it was a head-on collision.”

After the crash, Cleary learned that there were five family members in the pickup, three adults and two children. They escaped the crash without serious injuries.

Cleary suffered significant injuries in the crash when part of the pickup’s trailer crashed through his windshield. He fractured his nose and the eye orbits of his skull and will require surgery. He is looking forward to getting back behind the wheel but has two months of recovery ahead of him.

The semi owned by Ventures West Transport was only a month old and was declared a total loss.

Sources:

CBC