On November 14th, 2023, at 0312 hours, I was patrolling Mile Marker 142 on I-95 North when dispatch dropped a generic 10-50 PI (Motor Vehicle Accident with Personal Injury) across the radio. The conditions were treacherous; a nor'easter was dumping three inches of rain per hour, creating hydroplane conditions that rendered standard traction control systems useless. As a Corporal with twenty years in Troop B, I developed a sense for the severity of a crash based solely on the tone of the trucker chatter on Channel 19. The radio was screaming about a "compact under a reefer unit," which usually translates to a Code 4 (Coroner Requested). When I arrived on the scene, my dashcam logged the incident time. A 2018 Honda Civic had lost traction, spun 180 degrees, and slid rear-first under the trailer of a Freightliner Cascadia. The DOT underride guard - often called a "Mansfield Bar" - had failed completely due to the velocity of the impact. The trailer’s rear axle was effectively sitting in the backseat of the sedan. In two decades of accident reconstruction, the kinetic energy calculation was simple: the passenger compartment should have been obliterated. I grabbed my window punch and trauma kit, stepping out into the gale, fully expecting to be documenting a fatality for the Fatal Crash Investigation Team (FCIT).
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