‘Watch out!’ Cops drag woman from path of box truck sliding on icy Illinois highway

A routine tire-change for a motorist stranded in an ice storm on Interstate 64 turns to alarm for two Illinois State Police troopers, a police dashcam video shows.

“Watch out! Watch out!” a trooper shouts, pointing up the freeway past the patrol vehicle with the dashcam. The troopers bolt off the shoulder, dragging the stranded driver — a woman — into a snowy ditch along the highway, the video shows.

Then a box truck, sliding sideways out of control on the icy pavement, careens into view, heading directly for the stranded vehicle, the video shows.

The truck narrowly misses the fleeing troopers and, according to an Illinois State Police post on Facebook, slides right over the woman in the ditch.

The box truck then topples over into the ditch, the video shows. Calling in the crash on their radios, the troopers dash back to the ditch, calling out to the woman to see if she’s all right.

The troopers escaped injury, while the woman was treated and released at a hospital, Illinois State Police wrote on Facebook. The crash took place Nov. 12 near Wayne City.

The box truck driver, who had properly moved over to avoid the stopped patrol car, will be cited for failing to reduce speed to avoid a crash, troopers wrote.

“Folks, we can’t stress this enough! SLOW DOWN!” troopers wrote. “As you can see, sometimes it’s a matter of life or death as a stranded motorist. It’s not just about us out there, it is people you know and love that we are assisting also.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 12:32 PM with the headline "‘Watch out!’ Cops drag woman from path of box truck sliding on icy Illinois highway."