Dashboard cam footage shows just how amazingly close to disaster the driver came.

On 10 May a man was driving a dump truck through Zama City in Kanagawa Prefecture when he came to a narrow two lane bridge.

As the truck made its way across the bridge and past a few other large vehicles, a small car that had been driving too close behind an oncoming dump truck collided with it. As a result it suddenly swerved out in front of the driver and clipped the front end of his dump drunk.

Although it wasn’t a direct hit, it was enough to send the dump truck swerving out of control on a bridge far too slim to accommodate such maneuvers. In less than a second the truck was sideways and about to head straight into the concrete railing.

The driver desperately turned left as quick as he could, but it was already too late; the momentum of the truck carried it right through the concrete barrier like it were butter and began to fall with the driver at the brunt end of the several ton mass of steel.

However, just as the driver sat staring straight down at the ground below, the truck stopped. Then, as if pulled by some supernatural force, the heavy vehicle began to move back up and level itself back out on the bridge.

Although it must have seemed like it to him at the time, it wasn’t divine intervention that saved this man, but a heavy load of broken asphalt in the bed of the truck. It was just enough to counteract the forces of the truck and gravity and kept the vehicle hanging long enough for the driver to be rescued.

▼ News reports show the exterior of the truck and the large load of asphalt it was carrying at the time

It took rescue workers what must have been a harrowing hour to free the driver, but he managed to walk away with only minor injures to his legs.

He told media, “I thought, ‘Am I going to die?'” but then, “I was hanging and then suddenly from behind there was like a fwaaa… My line of sight went from straight down to normal and I thought I had been saved this time.”

Among the many car accidents claiming lives in a matter of seconds, this driver was incredibly lucky have made it out okay. It reminds us that no matter how bleak things may look, sometimes just hanging in there is enough.

Source: TV Asahi News
Images: YouTube/zakae