A Lehigh Valley woman says she and her two passengers are lucky to be alive after a slab of ice flew off the top of a truck and smashed into the windshield of her car.
Stacy Crudele says she was driving in the northbound lanes on Route 33 in Plainfield Township, Northampton County Monday afternoon. As she was driving, Crudele says a table-sized slab of ice flew off a tractor trailer in the opposite lane.
“As soon as I saw it come up off the truck, the first thing running through my head was making peace with God and praying for the best,” said Timothy Arigo, a passenger inside the car. “It was a huge chunk of ice.”
Crudele says she slammed the brakes, but not before the ice smashed into her windshield.
“I hit the brake and I tried to move to the right but there was another truck on the other side and it was that quick,” Crudele said. “All of a sudden I felt like pinches all over. It was the glass that hit me.”
Amazingly, Crudele, Arigo, and Virginia Crudele were not hurt during the incident. Virginia says it was an extremely close call.
“It bounced up and hit the front of our car and then continued and hit the windshield,” said Virginia. “If she hadn’t hit the brakes, I think it would’ve gone right through the windshield and we wouldn’t be here.”
Crudele claims the ice came from a ShopRite truck. Police are currently searching for the truck driver though they say there is little they can do if they find him.
In Pennsylvania, you can be fined up to $1000 if ice from your vehicle injures or kills someone. Since no one was hurt or killed during Monday's incident however, police say the driver would likely only receive a warning.
While he and his friends escaped injury, Arigo says the scary experience is already having an impact on him.
“I’m still a little shaken,” Arigo said. “I was nervous getting in the car this morning. Whenever a tractor trailer would go by I would cringe a little bit.”
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