Road worker uses truck as barricade for wrong-way driver on I-65
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man’s quick thinking Sunday may have saved the lives of more than a dozen construction workers on I-65.
Police said a chase led to a drunken driver speeding the wrong way on northbound I-65 near Lafayette Road, and a construction worker made the brave choice to use his truck as a barricade.
The worker said he did not think twice when it came to putting himself in the way of danger to protect others.
Just before 3 a.m. Sunday, William Honey heard a strange call over his CB radio.
“She said, ‘Everybody, look out, there is a chase in the barricades,’” Honey said.
Knowing how many workers were on the ground paving behind him, Honey made a quick decision. “I just turned my truck sideways as fast as I could to create a barricade, a blockade, so that way he couldn’t get any farther and hopefully he would just stop.”
But, the driver didn’t stop. He slammed into Honey’s dump truck head-on.
No one was injured in the crash, police said.
“I think it would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t done it,” Honey said. “They (the road workers) have nothing more than a barrel or a cone separating them from a 2,200- to 8,000-pound vehicle.”
Laura Honey, William’s wife, said she was shocked when she heard what her husband had done. “I was very scared. I was scared for him. I was scared for the construction workers, and it was emotional knowing he put his life at risk for other people.”
“It is sometimes hard to sleep because you don’t know what is going to happen whenever he is on the job.”
William Honey said he knows the other people on his crew would have done the same thing if they were in his position. He said people have to look out for each other in his line of work.
The driver of the Pontiac car that hit the dump truck, Jonathan Hipolito, 20, of Indianapolis, was taken to the hospital where they tested his blood-alcohol level. A news release from state police did not provide the results of the test.
The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office will decide whether to file formal criminal charges. Hipolito faces preliminary drug and alcohol charges as well as preliminary charges of unlawful operation of a vehicle in a work zone and driving while suspended. He also was cited for driving the wrong way on a one-way road. Hipolito has previous charges related to drunk driving.