I fell asleep while driving and the next thing I knew the truck was rolling in a ditch.-Cary Alder
Cary's old Tacoma has certainly seen better days.
Imagine you bought a truck, fixed it up really nice, and in the blink of an eye, it was all gone. Such was the case with Cary Alder and his first ride. He had a '92 Toyota Tacoma and altered its height with a lift kit and a set of Parnelli Jones all-terrain tires with Mickey Thompson 15-inch wheels. While on his way to the third day of his senior year in high school, Cary fell asleep behind the wheel and his truck veered off the highway. While his eyes were shut, the truck flipped, end over end, six times in the ditch beside the road. During the initial flip, Cary's head hit the steering wheel, a blow that woke him up just before he sunk into unconsciousness again.
When his eyes opened, he found his left arm pinned between the top of the door and the pavement. All the glass was broken during the tumble and the truck came to a rest on the driver side. Freeing Cary's arm from the wreck, the Kentucky State Troopers righted the truck and the paramedics rushed him to the emergency room. The medical staff stitched up the cuts on his arm, and he was released from the hospital. Before this accident, Cary installed a chrome rollbar in the bed of the truck for looks. He would have never guessed that it would save his life. Cary lived through the unimaginable by completely wrecking his truck and then cheating death during the whole incident.
Cary may have gotten away from the wreck with only minor cuts and bruises, but the Tacoma was pretty well destroyed. During the accident, Cary was knocked out and all that he could remember was how he was rushed to the hospital. He did not get a good look at his demolished truck till afterward, when he visited the junkyard to see what was left of his custom truck. For the first time, Cary was able to see the damage of the Tacoma, and he freaked at how mangled it was. The only thing that was not busted on the truck was one taillight, which was miraculously left unscathed. Since Cary only had liability insurance on the truck, it was not covered for this self-inflicted collision. It was a total loss, and Cary had to pick up the pieces and move on.
With the help of his father, Cary purchased a '98 Tacoma one week later with the intent of keeping it stock. Cary learned from his previous mistake, and this time stepped up to get full insurance coverage on his new ride to cover him against any collisions. Six months later, an elderly woman happened to back into the cab of his Tacoma. The woman was not a very observant driver and did not even notice that she hit Cary's truck. Lucky for him, a nearby witness knew the woman and gave Cary her phone number. Later that night, he called to tell her what had gone on, and the woman relayed her insurance information so that Cary could get his repair done. Cary kept driving his damaged ride until he could get around to fixing it. During that same week, a deer ran in front of the truck on the highway at night and smashed right into the front end of the body. The accidents weren't exactly a bad thing because now Cary had two settlements that enabled him to not only fix his ride but make it cooler.