A Massachusetts truck driver says he feels very lucky he is alive after a rock was thrown at his rig on Interstate 80 in Union County earlier this month.

His tractor-trailer truck was struck about a minute before another rock smashed the windshield of a car, critically injuring an Ohio woman.

Were it not for the bug shield on the front of his tractor-trailer truck, Matthew Baker, 55, of Plainville, Mass., believes he might have been killed or seriously injured.

"I was cruising along at 65 miles an hour," Baker said Saturday recounting the July 10 incident. He drives for Estes Express Lines and was headed from West Middlesex to Boston, a trip he makes regularly.

It was just before midnight and very dark when all of a sudden something hit his truck, he said.

"It happened so fast, so loud," Baker said. "It was like a building had crashed down."

As he asked himself what happened, he looked up and saw a round object go by the windshield. "I thought it was going to hit the mirror or the trailer," he said. It didn't, he said.

He pulled off the side to look at the damage and discovered the rock had hit a metal piece holding the bug shield in place. He told his dispatcher he thought someone had just dropped a rock on his rig and state police were notified.

"I feel I was very lucky," Baker said. Without the rock hitting a piece of metal on the bug shield, it could have rolled up into the windshield, he said. Or, if the rock was thrown a tenth of a second later, it could have hit the windshield, he said.

That is what happened about a minute later when Sharon Budd, 52, of Uniontown, Ohio, was critically injured.

The rock that hit the car driven by Budd's daughter, Kaylee, 19, smashed the windshield and struck the language arts teacher in the face. She is a patient at Geisinger Medical Center near Danville where a nursing supervisor said Saturday she remains in critical condition with severe head injuries.

Baker Thursday called Budd's husband, Randy, who as riding in the backseat, to tell him how terrible he felt about his wife and expressed hope for her recovery.

The rocks that hit both vehicles were thrown from Gray Hill Road overpass about two miles west of Route 15 in the New Columbia area.

State police have charged brothers Brett, 18, and Dylan Lahr, 17, who live in the vicinity of the overpass, in connection with the Budd incident.

Two juveniles will be charged as soon as Union County District Attorney D. Peter Johnson determines whether it will be as adults or juveniles, investigators say. Arrest documents indicate the two have been cooperating.

No one has been charged with the rock that hit Baker's rig.

Baker will continue to drive Interstate 80 but he said he will be more aware of things especially at night. He was unaware of the overpass the night his truck got hit, he said.

"I can't think something is going to happen," the father of five said. "I have a family to support." His wife, also Sharon, says "I'm a very lucky man," he said.