SAVAGE, Md. — Making a run from Mobile, Alabama to Baltimore, Alex Garcia pulled his big rig off of I-95 at the northbound rest area near Savage.
"I stopped on the shoulder for the rest area and the other truck hits the back of my truck and this other truck is down and hits this truck into moves into the back of my truck," said Garcia.
While the accident is still under investigation, it appears as one 18-wheeler pulled behind Garcia's, a leased box truck out of Baltimore slammed into the back of one tractor-trailer pushing it into the one parked along the ramp to the rest area.
"It's just very bad and the one truck is very bad," said Garcia.
One look at the demolished cab of the box truck shows almost everything, but the driver's seat was destroyed, and the front windshield of the larger truck also shattered after the back of its trailer was destroyed, yet both men emerged from the wreckage in the seconds following impact.
"I see no problem because they were walking," recalled Garcia.
"They were walking?"
"Yes, but he was hurt here and hurt here,” he responded, “Going for a check. This impact was very strong. Maybe it's broken."
Maryland State Police say paramedics rushed both of the victims by ambulance to Howard County General for treatment, and their condition remains unknown, but it's clear they were fortunate to have been able to walk away from such a major accident.
"It doesn't appear there were any fatalities so this is a case where you see the visuals of these two trucks---it was obviously a very harsh crash, but it doesn't look like anyone was killed and it's one of those cases where it could have been a lot worse situation than it was," said Ron Snyder of the Maryland State Police.
The crash forced the closure of the entire northbound side of the highway until medics cleared the scene, and reduced lanes clogged up traffic through the noon hour, as big tow trucks came in to clear the wreckage.