Illinois Truck Driver Thanks Those Who Saved His Life After Heart Attack
May 20, 2019, 5:38 PM
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — A truck driver got the chance to do something today that was almost impossible. He thanked those who saved him after his rig crashed on I-15 in South Salt Lake earlier this month. All involved say everything that happened that day was a miracle.
For 72-year-old John Lindsey, May 2nd is a blur.
“I cannot get a hold of when I got the other trailer, or when I got into the Salt Lake Area,” he said. “I don’t remember none of that, the only think I remember is a few days later, she was yelling my name.”
John’s fiancé Grett Williams remembers how it all happened, she was on vacation with her sister in Palm Springs during that time.
“I got a phone call saying he’d had a heart attack, and he had wrecked his truck,” Williams said. “They didn’t tell me anything, if he was alive, or if he was gone, if they saved him. My first thought was I have got to get to him, I’ve just got to get to him.”
Grett made it here to Salt Lake that night. She said she is thankful John is still here, and all thanks to the help of bystanders who saw John crash his truck.
Justin Letizia, a trainer at Intermountain TOSH, was driving behind John when the accident happened.
“I noticed a truck run off the shoulder, hitting cones, then going up on the barrier. As I drove by, I saw the driver seated, John was just staring out the front windshield, which didn’t sit well with me,” he said.
Letizia jumped into action, pulled John out of the truck when he couldn’t get his vitals and he started performing CPR. That’s when Provo Master Officer Ken Newell and his wife, fellow officer Robyn Newell saw the incident and stopped to help.
They took turns performing CPR on John until the ambulance arrived to take him to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray.
“The stars absolutely aligned, the amount of traffic when he was traveling,” Master Officer Newell said. “If he had gone left instead of right, he would have taken out car after car.”
Newell said he is happy to see John up and doing well.
It is not lost on anyone that everything that what happened that day was a miracle. Grett is thanking a higher power.
“The Lord put everybody in their place that day to save him, and it worked,” she said. “That was a miracle in itself.”
Grett and John head home to Illinois on Wednesday — doctors have told John to rest up and get stronger. John said he plans to get on the road again with his truck and he is thankful to still be here with those he loves.
