A truck driver for RM Trucking out of Hudsonville, Michigan, has been named a Highway Angel by the Truckload Carriers Association for stopping and helping after a driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed their car.
Melby Millirans, out of Twin Lake, Michigan, was driving north on I-75 out of Ocala, Florida, in the early morning hours when he saw an SUV ahead of him veer toward the guardrail, then swerve sharply to the right and run off the road, down a steep embankment and crash into a row of trees.
Millirans then pulled over and called 911 before grabbing his flashlight and running to check on the car. He saw a dazed driver trying to get out of the car and noticed the man had broken his leg and nearly severed his foot. The 911 operator told Millirans what to do, and the injured driver told him he had fallen asleep, then begged Millirans to check on his daughter who was in the back seat.
He found a 9-year-old girl in the back seat with a large contusion on her head, but she was conscious and told him her name. Millirans helped keep the driver calm while paramedics worked on him and, at one point, the driver passed out.
“I wondered if they would be all right,” Millirans said. “The little girl had been crying, in pain, especially when they put her on the gurney. When I’m driving along, I rehearse what I might do if something happened. I think doing that helped me that night. I didn’t panic. You get your thoughts together. You figure out where you’re at, call 911, and grab a flashlight.”
For his willingness to help, TCA presented Millirans with a certificate, patch, lapel pin and truck decals. RM Trucking also received a certificate acknowledging their driver as a Highway Angel. EpicVue sponsors the Highway Angel program.