22 March 2007
Angel on board?
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Toews, home from hospital, is seen with his happy family
Armando (right), 11, Emanuel (left), 12, Fabian 6, and wife Hildy.
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Winnipeg Manitoba - He may have had an angel riding
shotgun.
That's how Willy Toews sees his seemingly miraculous escape from a truck-train highway crash with not only his life, but
with his entire body intact.
And with not a single broken bone, even after becoming crunched into a twisted pile of metal when his garbage truck struck a Canadian
Pacific Railway train on Monday.
Barely two days after the collision on the Perimeter Highway, Toews went home yesterday from Health Sciences Centre where he had been
taken by ambulance in critical condition following his extrication from the wreckage.
"This is very amazing," Toews, owner of Bristal Hauling, told Sun Media from his home in Niverville, 25 kilometres south of
Winnipeg.
"One of my legs is cut, but other than that I just got banged up - on my head, and I've got some bruises on my body. Other than
that, nothing is bad. No bones are broken or nothing like that. I should be in good shape."
More Like an Escape
It's a recovery - more like an escape - that didn't appear possible to anyone who saw the spectacular morning crash just west of the
south Perimeter's intersection with Provincial Road 330 at the CPR La Riviere line.
While hauling trash east to the city's nearby Brady Road landfill at 10 a.m., the 36-year-old didn't see the southbound
23-car train - or the crossing's flashing warning lights - in time to stop.
Apparently travelling at near the 100-kilometre-per-hour speed limit, his 2000 Volvo rear-load compactor had
its entire cab ripped away from the vehicle and squished - with him, the lone occupant, in its driver seat.
Toews, a husband and father of three sons, says he has no knowledge - or memory - of how he didn't notice the train amid the clear
conditions, where RCMP said the highway was dry.
"I don't know how I didn't see that in time, that the train was coming. I don't remember any of it - otherwise I would rewind it
and see where I could have improved my driving," Toews explained.
"I remember my last load, and where I loaded," he added. "After that, it ends. I don't remember anything until I was at
the hospital and saw those tiles on the ceiling. And then I went, Where am I?"
Though he left HSC with leg stitches and crutches, the trucker expects to be on his feet at his office as soon as this morning.
And he'll return to driving, he said, perhaps within a few days.
Hildy Toews, the driver's wife, suggested the crash might have been harder on her and their sons age 12, 11 and six than on her
husband, once they saw news photographs and video of the wreckage.
Kids "Shocked"
"When they saw the pictures of the truck they were shocked. I tried to keep them calm," Hildy - who also drives a truck for
the firm - said of the boys.
"I praise the Lord. I don't know what to say. It's amazing how little happened to him."
RCMP Cpl. Larry Dalman - who continues to investigate the collision - said Toews may owe his luck and life to last-second
braking that he appears to have done before the impact with the train, which was moving at about 40 km/h.
Toews suggested his recovery may be more about the fact he's "aggressive" and doesn't like "to be a sissy."
However, the Christian added that he is blessed - and that the incident will make his faith stronger.
"I'm just thinking like all the other people, How did I make it?" he said. "I don't know how to explain it. The time
wasn't right, I guess, for me to go."
He'll pay more attention, he said, when he again hits the road.
"I hope never to do that again," he added. "You don't want to try that twice."
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