While we never give a second thought to the thousands of bugs we kill every year with our cars, most of us would do whatever we could to avoid killing another creature in the roadway – unless that meant risking even more lives in the process. But one American driver put dozens of drivers at risk with a crazy attempt to rescue a turtle that was crossing a busy Florida highway.
The action happened – very slowly at first, obviously – when an unnamed driver spotted the turtle crossing US-331 in Walton County. Admirably, he decided to save it from getting crushed by less vigilant drivers, and chose to stop to help. But rather than pull his truck onto the median, or the extra lane that started just ahead to take traffic off the highway, he decided simply to stop right in the middle of the road.
The resulting accident was captured from the dashcam of a semi-truck that was following behind in the adjacent lane and ultimately ended up hitting at least two other vehicles, including the wannabe president of the World Wildlife Fund. But if one of the car drivers behind the pickup hadn’t veered in front of the semi giving him almost no chance to scape contact, he might just have managed to pull up in time.
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That car driver came off worst though, being dragged alongside the semi and stuffed right into the back of the black pickup at the front of the line. Ouch. Incredibly, the turtle was discovered to be unharmed and police say it was relocated to a nearby pond.
“We all can do better to protect the wildlife and natural inhabitants of our great state,” Walton County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged in a Facebook post. “Just preferably not in the middle of the road.”
“While no ill intentions were meant, trying to avoid or assist an animal who has made its way onto a busy road can cause you or other drivers life-threatening injuries,” WCSO added.
“So, when you come across this predicament in the future and find yourself asking, ‘to swerve or not to swerve’ or ‘to stop and protect’ we hope the answer will now be an obvious one.”