Fremont County man ‘happy to be alive’ after truck falls on him

TWIN GROVES — A Fremont County man says he’s lucky to be alive after his one-ton pickup truck fell on him while he was working on it last week.

Tom Angell of Twin Groves, northeast of St. Anthony, had hoisted up the back end of his pickup with his tractor so he could get underneath to work on the truck.

“I put a chain up over the spears and I had it up in the air and working on it, and didn’t realize that the hoist on the spears would ‘bleed off,’” Angell says. “When I say, ‘bleed off,’ it would no longer be full of hydraulic fluid, and it allowed the cords to dump the truck on me. When the chain slipped off, it dropped the truck.”

Angell regrets not using a safety latch when lifting the truck.

At the time of the accident, Angell was lying underneath the truck. He says that as the truck came crashing down, one side of the vehicle bounced off the ground and the tires then landed on his leg. However, if he had been standing beneath the truck, as he had been moments before, he doesn’t think he would have survived.

“I was in one of two spots I could have been in and still lived, and I happened to be there,” Angell says.

Lance Steele, who works for Fall River Propane, happened to be right there and was able to help Angell from under the truck. He was on the job, filling Angell’s propane tanks and waiting to discuss propane prices when the truck fell.

“I asked if he needed an ambulance and I helped him up,” Steele says. “He thought he had broken his hip but he was actually able to get up. … He was able to stand up, and he walked it off pretty fast.”

Both men were shaken by the experience, and both expressed gratitude that it wasn’t worse. Angell did get checked out at the hospital, where he was told nothing was broken and that it was just a severe bruise.

“I’m glad to be alive,” Angell says. “Happy to be alive.”