A Wellington County man is in serious condition after a car crash in West Virginia.
Fire officials in the town of Jane Lew say Graham Scroggie was driving along Interstate 79 when a tire flew off a tractor trailer and smashed through his windshield.
He was airlifted to a local hospital in critical condition.
“I was kind of speechless,” says Wendy Swackhamer, a family friend. “I didn’t know what to do, what to say.”
Scroggie’s wife Brenda was also in the vehicle at the time of the crash, but wasn’t seriously hurt.
According to friends of the couple, Graham is making progress. But because he suffered a brain injury, his recovery will be long and difficult.
“He is coherent, able to make gestures with his hands,” notes Swackhamer. “He has a lot of broken bones and a lot of swelling in his face.”
The Scroggies were driving home from a vacation in Florida when the crash occurred.
Friends tell CTV News in the moments after the tire came crashing in their car, Brenda grabbed the steering wheel and guided the vehicle off to the side of the highway.
Other motorists say that quick-thinking may have saved lives.
“I don’t know what happened inside that car in the moments after he was hit, but the way in which his car was maneuvered saved my life and my 12-year-old daughter’s,” wrote Teresa Allen on the local U.S. news station’s Facebook page.
Swackhamer says the Scroggies’ two teenaged kids have travelled to West Virginia to be by their father’s side.
Graham works as a mechanic for the City of Guelph, and Brenda is an artist who also runs a well-known clown and face-painting business.
