A woman in Florida has been lucky to escape with her life after a piece of plywood smashed through the windscreen of her Honda Civic.
Brevard County Fire Rescue reports that a pickup truck was driving on Interstate 95 near Rockledge, Florida on Friday when an unsecured piece of plywood flew off the truck’s bed and smashed directly into the windscreen of the Civic following behind.
Shocking images from the scene show the huge piece of plywood stuck halfway into the cabin of the Honda.
It appears as though one of the corners of the plywood sheet initially broke through the windscreen, meaning it entered the windscreen at an angle and was stopped by the A-pillars. If the plywood didn’t hit the windscreen at an angle, it could have slipped between the A-pillars and decapitated the driver of the vehicle, 35-year-old Rebecca Burgman.
Autoblog reports that the Florida woman was treated for minor injuries, but things could have been much worse.
Authorities ticketed 51-year-old Jaime Riveira, the driver of the pickup truck, for faulty equipment. Riveira thought that he had secured the piece of plywood in the back of his truck. He was wrong.
Although the Honda driver escaped with her life, not everyone hit by unsecured loads is so lucky. According to an AAA study, 500 people were killed on U.S. roads by unsecured loads between 2011 and 2014. There were roughly 200,000 accidents of this sort during that period, leaving 39,000 people injured.