joyvy67
02-24-2008, 10:50 AM
A wheelchair user has been taken for a high-speed ride along a US highway after his handlebars became tangled up in the front grille of a lorry.
http://img242.imagevenue.com/loc215/th_50211__43022369_wheelchair_ap203i_123_215lo.jpg
The back of Ben Carpenter's wheelchair was scooped up as he passed in front of a lorry leaving a petrol station.
The driver was completely unaware that he had a new passenger, kept in his wheelchair by a seatbelt.
Passing motorists told police, who found the man unhurt - but still attached to the front of the truck.
Police in the town of Paw Paw, Michigan, said Mr Carpenter had told them "it was quite a ride", but complained only that he had spilled his soda.
The lorry reached speeds of 50mph (80km/h) as it drove down the Red Arrow Highway.
After several miles the driver pulled over at the depot of a trucking company where police then told him about the man on his front end.
He refused to believe there was a man in a wheelchair stuck to the front of his truck until he saw it for himself, police said.
"It's fast, I know that," Ben Carpenter told local Wood TV.
"I was probably thinking that he [the driver] is going to keep going, not stop anywhere, go 50-60 miles somewhere".
"I mean I would have been dead way before that," he added."
http://img242.imagevenue.com/loc215/th_50211__43022369_wheelchair_ap203i_123_215lo.jpg
The back of Ben Carpenter's wheelchair was scooped up as he passed in front of a lorry leaving a petrol station.
The driver was completely unaware that he had a new passenger, kept in his wheelchair by a seatbelt.
Passing motorists told police, who found the man unhurt - but still attached to the front of the truck.
Police in the town of Paw Paw, Michigan, said Mr Carpenter had told them "it was quite a ride", but complained only that he had spilled his soda.
The lorry reached speeds of 50mph (80km/h) as it drove down the Red Arrow Highway.
After several miles the driver pulled over at the depot of a trucking company where police then told him about the man on his front end.
He refused to believe there was a man in a wheelchair stuck to the front of his truck until he saw it for himself, police said.
"It's fast, I know that," Ben Carpenter told local Wood TV.
"I was probably thinking that he [the driver] is going to keep going, not stop anywhere, go 50-60 miles somewhere".
"I mean I would have been dead way before that," he added."