My Jimmy 4x4

This is my new truck. Well it wasn't exactly new since it was a 1989 GMC Jimmy S15 4x4, but it was definitely new to me seeing as I only had the pleasure of driving it for a little over 2 months before a semi-truck rear-ended me on the tollway last Friday morning.


This is the right rear of my truck, where the semi-truck drifted out of his lane into mine and struck it. We were about a half hour from home and I was looking in my rearview mirror at my friend asleep in the backseat when WHAM we felt an enormous thud on the truck and were slammed forward/sideways... we were travelling at approximately 60mph.

After being slammed into the cement barrier, this is what the driver's side of my truck looked like. The windshield shattered and my driver's side door window shattered and blew into the truck. The entire side was scraped flat and paintless, and the rear axle cracked in two. You can see the left rear tire fell off. After hitting the barrier, we were bounced across all 4 lanes of the tri-state into a metal guardrail on the other side.

This is the damage done from the metal guardrail. Note my poor truck's eyeball hanging out. After impact with the guardrail, we were again bounced back across 4 lanes toward the cement barrier. Hearing my boyfriend scream my name to stop the truck, I suddenly was able to focus on the barrier we were heading toward and stopped the truck just inches before another impact. From the inital crack by the semi-truck until I was able to focus on stopping my truck, it was pretty much a big blur. After we stopped, I just thought "this did not just happen to us, it's got to be a dream..."

After we came to a stop, the semi-truck driver pulled over far up on the right shoulder and ran across to us. He came to my shattered driver's side window and asked if we were all okay. Since we were alive, I told him yes we were alright. He said he called the wrecker and they were on their way. I asked who hit us. He said that nobody had hit us, he was the only other vehicle on the road. My boyfriend insisted that we were hit and told the truck driver that he must have hit us. The trucker denied it and ran back to his truck and took off. Therefore making this a hit and run accident which my insurance doesn't cover property damage for.

So I'm out my beautiful new truck and 4 grand all because this trucker wouldn't admit that he possibly dozed off behind the wheel and drifted into our lane and hit us. That is the only thing I can think that happened. We definitely were hit, it's obvious from the first two pictures and if he was the only one on the road.... It's useless, but I figured at least I could memorialize my lil truck on a webpage. :)

All three of us left the accident in one piece, though we did spend 4 hours in the emergency room because my friend who had been sleeping in the back had a small cut on the back of her head. Other than that, just a bunch of bruises and sore muscles...

Thanks for checking out my My Jimmy 4x4's webpage. :) And if you happened to be travelling north or southbound on I-94 and witnessed the accident about 1 mile south of the Half Day Road exit at approximately 3:25am in W. Deerfield, IL, please by all means, email me if you saw the semi-truck and can identify it.

- Cherie

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