ATLANTA — A metro Atlanta father is sharing his story of survival weeks after an overturned box truck left him trapped with severe injuries.
Paris Thompson says he was driving home from North Carolina in May when his 26-foot box truck suddenly overturned near Interstate 285 and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in southwest Atlanta.
It left him pinned underneath, with the weight of the truck on his head and body.
“Truck’s on top of my head. That’s all I remember,” he said.
Cellphone video captured the terrifying moments after the crash, including Thompson’s desperate cries for help as he remained trapped inside the wreckage.
“Get me out of here. I don’t know what’s going on. Get me out of here, because I really did not know,” Thompson recalled.
The antique transporter said he was less than five minutes from home and looking forward to celebrating his son’s 14th birthday when the crash happened.
“I was getting off it to 285 in Adamsville heading MLK to Boulder Park,” Thompson said.
The next thing he remembers is waking up upside down inside the crushed cab of the truck.
“I just wake up upside down in the truck, and I hear Mike’s voice, and then I just started yelling and screaming,” Thompson said.
That “Mike” was Mikeal Collins, one of several Good Samaritans who rushed to help after hearing Thompson’s cries for help.
Collins and his friends had just finished a night of skating at Cascade Skating Rink when they came across the crash scene. They ran to the wreckage and helped pull Thompson to safety.
Looking back on the ordeal, Thompson says he still has a hard time believing he survived.
“It’s amazing. I mean, it’s nothing short of amazing,” he said.
The crash left Thompson with serious injuries. Doctors performed emergency surgery after he fractured his neck and suffered severe road rash. He spent 12 days in the hospital, including nine days in the intensive care unit.
Now back home and continuing his recovery, Thompson says the experience changed his perspective on life.
“Every day is a new day. Everything I see, things differently,” he said.
He says he remains grateful to the strangers who stopped to help that night.
“To the day I die, grateful, grateful,” Thompson said.
Thompson told Channel 2 Action News he has stayed in touch with Collins and several of the other good Samaritans through phone calls and text messages.
However, he says he is looking forward to thanking them in person for the first time, a reunion he expects will be emotional.
The cause of the crash remains unclear.
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