Whitfield County Fire/FacebookHave you ever worried about logs flying through your car window off the back of a lorry à la Final Destination 2?
It’s a fear that’s plagued the imaginations of drivers since 2003, when audiences endured one of the most horrific highway acts of Death himself to hit the screen, with blood, guts and heads rolling after a logging truck lets loose.
One Georgia driver experienced a similar nightmare, driving straight into the back of the truck – but luckily, he emerged with his life intact.
Whitfield County Fire/FacebookOn October 11, the driver – who has remained unnamed – bent down to pick up a cup of coffee he dropped. In that short window, while his eyes were off the road, the SUV rear-ended the truck, impaling the vehicle back-to-front with logs.
The Whitfield County Fire Department posted the terrifying photos from the Cleveland Highway in Cohutta on Facebook, which have been shared more than 20,000 times.
Whitfield County Fire/FacebookSo, how did he survive? Well, due to the fact he wasn’t upright at the time of the collision, when the logs penetrated his vehicle his head ended up fitting in a spectacularly tight gap.
Whitfield County Fire Chief Edward O’Brien told CNN: ‘It was as if it was almost created just for his head.’
O’Brien explained that firefighters had to cut through 30 to 40 logs with chainsaws before they could begin the process of cutting the car open to free the driver. However, after that it only took between 10 and 15 minutes to get the man out of the vehicle.
Whitfield County Fire/FacebookOfficials said the motorist escaped with only minor injuries, and it’s not been confirmed whether police plan to file any charges in relation to the incident.
The infamous highway sequence from Final Destination 2 is said to be inspired by a 125-car pileup in Ringgold, Georgia in 2002.
Around 125 vehicles, including 20 tractor-trailers, smashed into each other in thick fog on Interstate 75, taking the lives of four people and injuring 39 others.
If you’re unaware of the Final Destination series and want to understand what I’m referring to, here’s a clip from the film. Fair warning, it’s quite graphic:
As reported by CNN, it took emergency crews nearly eight hours to extricate the bodies of two of the dead from their vehicles following the catastrophic collisions.
The NASCAR massacre at the core of The Final Destination, the fourth entry in the series, was claimed to be inspired by the 1955 Le Mans disaster.
During the 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race on June 11, 1955, a huge crash saw debris firing into the crowds.
More than 80 spectators – along with French driver Pierre Bouilli – were killed (although reports claim the death toll to be much higher), while nearly 180 more were injured.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.