LOWELL, MASS. (WHDH) – Providing us a look at the damage left behind, Danny Cruz recounted the terrifying moments on 495 in Lowell when he says, without warning, he was hit from behind by a tractor-trailer truck that sent his car spinning out of control before barreling off the highway and wedged into the woods.
“Right now, I’m not understanding that I could’ve potentially died,” Cruz said.
Cruz says the car was wedged into the woods so deep, at first, no one could find the wreckage.
“I started to look over my shoulder, to see if I could see the road, and I could barely see the road,” Cruz said. “That’s when I started to panic. Like, what if nobody’s gonna find me.”
Cruz managed to grab his cell phone and call for help.
Around 10 p.m. Thursday, he explained to police officers that the 18-wheeler that crashed into his car, never stopped.
“The car spun, and it somehow started to go back toward the 18-wheeler,” said Cruz. “I could see that I was gonna go underneath it, and I’m like, ‘I need to spin the wheel again,’ and when I did, that’s how I ended up going toward the grass.”
Cruz said he was briefly trapped in his car and was shaken up, but walked away without a scratch.
“Holy cow, you know,” Cruz said on what he was thinking. “Like, life hit. My car’s gone. Am I okay? I’m fine, now it’s time to figure out what we’re gonna do next.”
State police said they’re trying to track down the trucker, meanwhile Cruz is hoping someone who witnessed the crash would come forward.
“Everyone keeps saying that stuff like this happens all the time, and it’s like, if it does, this stuff can’t keep happening,” Cruz said.
For now, Cruz is thankful to be alive, and he has a message for the driver who kept going.
“Do the right thing, you know,” Cruz said. “Do the human thing to do. That’s all. I’ve been in accidents, and, you know, you have to stay to make sure the other people are okay. You should feel compelled to.”
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