On January 6th, 2023 around 2:30 in the afternoon we were returning to the mainland of Florida after spending 4 glorious nights down in the Florida Keys, sightseeing all the islands down to Key West. We were just entering the southern outskirts of Homestead Florida, a southern suburb of Miami, heading to our next SOWER project in Steward, FL. We were coming up to an intersection as the light turned yellow, thinking I had plenty of time to breeze thru it before it turned red I continued on. I was mistakened. According to two witnesses, the light was red when I entered the intersection (in my mind, I still disagree). I broadsided (T-boned) a car going thru the intersection which in turn, sideswiped a car across the intersection. The speed limit was 45mph, the momentum was enough that when I hit the car, it spun the truck around 180 degrees forcing the passenger side to hit the side of the trailer effectively tipping trailer over. The fifth wheel hitch was ripped out the box of the truck, which is quite a feat when you consider it's bolted to the frame of the truck. I do not remember seeing the car, I remember hearing a "BANG", I remember seeing a white flash (I think it was the airbag), I remember thinking "What the...". Then it was over. The truck was saying over and over "You were in an accident, 911 has been called...". The back of the truck was against the signals pole. Starr was shouting "it's on fire, get out" (turns out it was the smoke from the airbags) and "I lost my phone, I can't find my phone" (We did find it). Starr did lose on of her hearing aids, never did find it. There was a fire truck, ambulance type vehicle across the street at a convenience store that saw the whole thing (one of the witnesses) they rushed over and had us sit down inside and made sure we we alright. I had no cuts or bruises, Starr had the seatbelt bruise thing going on (across the waist and up between the boobs to her shoulder). Fortunately, there was no one on the sidewalk. The man in the car broke a tooth and possibly a bloody nose, the car he hit the gals had no injury's. God was watching over us, none died, no one was carted off in an ambulance. Big Red & Boo (our trailer) both were totaled. Still working thru some of that. We recovered close to 90% of our stuff. We had more or less just bought groceries, so the refrigerator was full, we no place to to put it.
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| The final resting spot |
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| Driver' side |
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| Tool box in the back of the truck |
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Boo sitting in the impound lot. Whenever we came to clear our stuff out they had put a forklift under the front end to keep it stable, that's how damaged it was. They would not let me on the roof to get the solar panels because of the unstableness.
If you look real close, you can still see the hitch is still on the trailer. |
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| Freezer, Note my box of ice cream bars, upper right corner!! |
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| And the fridge! That thing must have stunk to high heaven by the time it got picked up! |
