A Katy couple had a horrible start to their road trip Thursday, but it left them feeling lucky to be alive. Joshua Hedden and his wife, Taylor, were northbound on I-45 a little before noon as they headed for their destination in the Texas panhandle. Joshua Hedden, who was driving, said they’d just dropped off their 5-year-old son with grandparents in Spring as they traveled north. The couple’s 10-year-old daughter was with other family members. Hedden said after they left their son and headed out on I-45, which has some long stretches where people drive much too fast, he thought briefly how awful it would be for the children if they both died in a crash on the interstate. He had no idea how close they’d find themselves to finishing their journey much too soon.

The Heddens were on the north side of Huntsville when they saw an 18-wheeler had crashed and rolled onto its side on the southbound side of I-45. The steel the truck was hauling was spilled onto the main lanes, and traffic was backing up behind the crash, as other motorists and medics gathered around the truck. Since they hadn’t seen the crash, and some first responders and citizens were already checking on the truckdriver, Hedden said they kept going.

The Heddens didn’t even make it a mile past the crash when Josh Hedden says he saw something scary. He was talking to a friend on the phone through his truck’s audio system, and his friend was speaking when Hedden saw another southbound 18-wheeler. He immediately thought the big rig hadn’t realized traffic on the southbound lanes was totally stopped, and was not reducing his speed and applying his brakes in time to stop. Hedden reached over with his right hand and tapped his wife’s shoulder to draw her attention to the approaching truck without interrupting his friend. Around the same time, he says the 18-wheeler swerved to miss hitting another 18-wheeler box truck and clipped the corner of the other truck, but managed not to crash. Instead, the big rig swerved violently toward the northbound lanes, crossing the grassing median and tearing down the chain barrier as if it were nothing. Josh Hedden says he swerved out of the path of the out-of-control 18-wheeler just in time, and with no room to spare.

“If my hand was out the window, I could’ve touched his hood,” Hedden said.

The startled couple says they looked just in time to see the southbound 18-wheeler, now in the northbound lanes, plow head-on into a Chevy Colorado. Taylor Hedden was devastated, and both were relieved to learn the driver was not pronounced dead on the scene. Taylor Hedden called 911 and the call was initially sent to the wrong county and then transferred. Adding to the confusion was the other 18-wheeler crash just car-lengths away, and dispatchers had already logged that call and assumed the Heddens’ call was a duplicate, at first. There was also the issue of knowing whether or not they were speaking to the correct county’s 911 call-takers, since the Heddens were so far from home and in the state with the highest number of counties in the entire United States, at 254. Eventually, first responders arrived and the Heddens visited a nearby Buckee’s where they could pause and let their heartrates slow down.

A couple of hours later, the Heddens were back on their route, but still very shaken and looking forward to reaching their smalltown destination, where Josh Hedden said they planned to drive as little as possible until they return home.

Editor’s note: We don’t know if the Heddens go to church, but we think someone had been praying for their safety!