What happens when a loaded straight dump loses its brakes on a downhill run and collides head-on with a tanker truck loaded with jet fuel? Not what you might expect. Reporter Brett Kelman, writing in the Pacific Daily News, reports that Guam Governor Eddie Calvo (pictured) was proclaiming the relatively ho-hum aftermath, with mostly minor injuries, as an act of God.
On the way to the big collision, the dump missed the governor by a mere five feet, Kelman reported. “Calvo was sitting in his car, stopped at a red light across from his office, when the dump truck whizzed by, crushing the northbound tanker truck’s front as it crossed the intersection,” Kelman wrote. The fuel hauler was loaded with 9,500 gallons. Combine the lack of a fuel tank breach with the near miss, and you’ve got a recipe for as clear a case of divine intervention as one could dream up. At least for Calvo — the tanker truck driver wasn’t so fortunate, though both he and the dump driver survived the accident.
In addition to his gubernatorial duties, Calvo pens a column for the newspaper. Kelman summarized Calvo’s post-accident column’s thrust by quoting these sentences: “The good Lord served me up a reminder. He reminded me to live each day as though it might be my last day; to greet each and every moment, each day, each activity and each person as if God was watching — watching your final day on Earth.”
Read Kelman’s full story here, and stay in the moment, safe, out there.