On Saturday, Feb. 16, at 3:00 in the afternoon, my girlfriend, two others, and I were on our way back to Johnson from Burlington on the Badger Bullet. It was a cold sunny day and the traffic clogged the roads as if it were rush hour.
At around 3:20, a mile past the Essex shopping plaza, two cars in front of the Badger Bullet came to a slow stop to allow someone to turn left into the discount beverage and gas station. We stopped gradually and waited for them to turn. As we waited, an 18-wheeler logging truck failed to brake in time, and slammed into the rear of the Badger Bullet. Pete, the Badger Bullet driver, saw the truck quickly approaching in the mirror and yelled for us to “look out!” I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but just a second later, the impact of the big-rig pushed us into the van in front of us.
As we waited for the emergency workers, we tried to gather our thoughts and figure out what had happened. We were pretty shaken up, Pete being the most affected by the double-impact. The van in front of us had a family with two little children in car seats. The kids weren’t injured, but the mother was placed on a stretcher and sent to the hospital by ambulance. Later, Pete was taken to the hospital as well, with back and neck pain from the whiplash. The damage to the bio-diesel Badger Bullet was surprisingly minimal considering the force of the impact, but it had to be left at the liquor store parking lot until someone could come check it out.
As the fire trucks and ambulances left the scene, Anna and I were the only two remaining, besides one Essex policeman. He didn’t think we should have to wait for the tow truck, if it came at all, so he was willing to bring us to the Lamoille County line. He got on the radio, and in Cambridge another helpful officer came to escort us back to Johnson. Otherwise, we would have been completely stranded in Essex. In retrospect, Anna and I feel lucky to be relatively uninjured after our first real car accident.
Hopefully the Badger Bullet will be repaired and back in operation after vacation, and Pete will be well enough to drive it once again.