It was almost dark, cars were zooming by us on the highway. My dad unbuckled his seatbelt and rushed out of the car. I looked behind us and saw the headlights of cars swerving and weaving in and out of the four lanes, and the car behind us slammed on his brakes.
Let me back up a little. It was Saturday morning, my family and I were at my grandpa’s house in Oklahoma moving furniture onto our flatbed trailer. We were taking a mattress, a box spring and a lot of other stuff that filled our trailer. In order for everything to fit, we had to stack some things on top of others. We put the box spring on the bottom, the mattress on top of the box spring, and then the trunk on the mattress.
It looked kinda like this on top of the trailer:
Jacob Friedberg
We used straps and rope to tie everything down so nothing would fall off. Two straps tied the trunk and mattresses together while we used the rest of the straps for the other things we were bringing back. After we were done, we double checked to make sure everything was secure. We said goodbye to my uncle and cousins and started our journey back to Texas, a four hour and 30 minute drive.
During this time, the Oklahoma State Fair was in progress. Traffic was heavy, but we continued moving at a good 60 mph. on an eight-lane highway. We were about an hour into our drive, and I was sitting in the back seat — my dad was driving and my mom was in the passenger seat. I was playing a game on my iPad and had headphones in when something made me have the urge to turn around and check on the trailer. For some reason I was nervous to look.
I turned my head back and saw that one of the straps that was holding the trunk down to the mattress was very close to the edge of the trunk. The mattress underneath the trunk was bouncing the trunk around. I told my dad that we might want to get off at the next exit and check to make sure the straps weren’t loosening. He was already looking in the rear-view mirror and agreed on getting off at the next exit.
We slowed down a little, then out of nowhere we hit a huge bump on the highway. I looked back and saw the trunk, with no straps on it, bounce high on the mattress like it was a little kid jumping on a bed. “Don’t fall, don’t fall,” I was thinking to myself and hoping.
But it did. It tumbled off the trailer and landed onto the highway. The trunk rolled, skidded and tumbled down the highway. Sparks were flying.
“It’s off, it’s off!” I yelled. My dad quickly signaled to get in the far right lane. The car behind us slammed on its brakes, trying to avoid the trunk without swerving into the surrounding lanes and getting hit by other cars. We pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway and my dad turned our hazard lights on. All I could see were the many headlights of the cars swerving around the trunk.
My dad carefully got out of the truck and ran in the grass back to where the trunk had landed. To make things worse, we had just went over a slight hill, so cars had very little time to react. Still on the shoulder, he went a little in front of where the trunk was on the highway and started waving his hands in the air to try and warn the drivers of the upcoming object in the road. My Mom and I stayed in the car and decided to call the police for the safety of the drivers and my dad.
“911, what’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked. My mom explained what had happened and told her where we were. The dispatcher transferred the call to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol office where we explained the situation again. They said they would have a Highway Patrol officer come right away.
It had been at least eight minutes and the police still hadn’t shown up. Meanwhile, almost all eight lanes of the highway, four on the side we were on, were full of cars traveling at about 40 to 50 mph which made trying to retrieve the trunk very dangerous. Still, no police had shown up, and it was getting even darker and harder to see the trunk.
After about 10 minutes a vehicle pulled behind us. A man got out and walked back toward my dad to offer his help. My dad told him he appreciated it but it was too dangerous, but the man insisted on helping him. Since the police still hadn’t shown up, they decided they better just do it themselves.
I was nervously watching them in the truck. They waved their hands and eventually got a car to stop in the far right lane, which allowed them to get one lane away from the trunk. With the car stopped in the far right lane, they peeked around into the next lane and waited for an opportunity to grab the trunk. I couldn’t see them anymore, it was too dark. After what seemed like forever, I saw two figures walking along the shoulder with a black object in between them — the trunk.
They set the trunk down next to our trailer. My Dad shook the guy’s hand and thanked him for helping. This guy took time out of his day to help a stranger in a dangerous situation. Who knows what would’ve happened if this guy hadn’t stopped to help. The guy got back in his car and pulled off onto the highway. I rolled down the window and waved at him.
My Dad put the trunk back on the trailer and made a temporary, but secure, place for the trunk. My Dad got back in the truck, relieved that they had gotten the trunk. We pulled onto the highway and took the nearest exit to find a place to pull over. We saw a Braum’s and pulled in, it had lights in the parking lot so it was easy to see what we were doing. My Dad and I got out and went back to the trailer to adjust the trunk.
Amazingly, the trunk was hardly damaged. I don’t know how this was possible since it bounced high in the air and slammed on the highway, rolling and sliding across the pavement. The only damage it seemed to have was a few scuffs on the metal parts of the trunk, which I assumed is what caused the sparks earlier on. After about five minutes, a guy walked out of Braum’s and came over to our trailer. He looked at the trunk and asked “Is this the trunk that was on I-240?” We laughed, and said yes. He told us that we did a great job retrieving it and after a quick conversation he said goodbye and got into his truck and left.
What we thought was going to be a four hour and 30 minute drive turned out to be about eight hours. We got home at midnight — exhausted from the long journey we had encountered. That day, I learned that little things can have a big impact on one’s journey. What you think may be a small situation can build up into something large. Also, highway mattresses can be very very powerful.
