Vienna Township -- NBC25 cameras caught a dramatic rescue Tuesday morning as a car was trapped beneath a semi-truck for hours.
On-lookers are calling it a miracle, saying they can't believe the man pinned inside made it out alive.
Just before 6 a.m., a vehicle heading south on I-75 near Lake Road in northern Genesee County, spun out. A semi-truck behind the vehicle tried to get out of the way, but couldn't. The car and the semi both wound up in a ditch with the semi trailer sideways on top of the car, bearing down on the cars' doors.
The person in the car, a 30-year-old from Millington named Marc tells NBC25, "The next I know, the semi smacked right into the back of me and pushed me into the ditch and a few seconds after that the roof caved in and I noticed the semi was on top of me."
Amazingly, Marc was not seriously injured inside the car, the roof above his driver's seat had not caved in. He was talking with emergency dispatchers on the phone and texting loved ones.
Marc says, "I was just trying to keep my mind off of the trailer and just wanted to let everyone know that I loved them and I was OK and hoping to get out of it."
"We ended up having to lift the back of the truck with one wrecker," said Clio Area Fire Chief Gary Domerese. (We) used another wrecker to pull the car out."
Rescue crews said being in the ditch could have actually saved the driver's life because the banks of the ditch held most of the semi trailer's weight, keeping it from crushing the car. The position of the trailer's load also kept the driver safe.
"They were hauling a load of sugar, I assume out of Saginaw or Bay City, and the load was primarily to the front three-quarters of the trailer," Domerese said. "So there was less weight on top of the car."
Doctors checked out both drivers. Neither had serious injuries.
*HEAR THE FULL INTERVIEW AND SEE RAW VIDEO OF THE RESCUE HERE: http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/story.aspx?id=568809.
