Big Rig Driven By Michigan Man Pins Motorcycle — But Rider, Thrown Off, Survives
SLIDELL, La. (AP) - Slidell Police Chief Randy Smith calls it "truly a miracle" that a motorcyclist survived a crash that left his 2014 Harley-Davidson pinned under a tractor-trailer and a trucker from Michigan accused of driving while intoxicated.
The 50-year-old motorcyclist, whose name was not released, had stopped to turn onto U.S. 190 West, and the impact threw him onto grass nearby, Smith said.
"There is no doubt in my mind that his guardian angel was with him during the accident," Smith said Tuesday.
Surveillance video from a nearby business, made public Tuesday by police, showed the truck continuing on for about half a block, then suddenly stopping.
The motorcyclist was admitted to University Hospital in New Orleans — south Louisiana's regional trauma center — in critical condition, but had improved to serious condition by Tuesday, four days after the accident, Sgt. Daniel Seuzeneau, the department spokesman, said in a phone interview.
Trucker Timothy Duimstra, 56, of Hudsonville, Michigan, who was hauling a load of flour, remained in the St. Tammany Parish Jail. After the wreck Friday, Duimstra was slurring his speech, unsteady, and appeared to be under the influence of both drugs and alcohol, Seuzeneau said in a news release Tuesday.
He was booked Friday with reckless driving and first-degree negligent injury as well as DWI.
Seuzeneau said investigators believe that Duimstra passed out behind the wheel, veered off of Highway 190 West, and ran over the motorcycle.
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