Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
OSGOOD, Idaho — A local husband and father of six miraculously lived to tell his story of survival after his one-ton truck fell on him.
Casey Price, of Osgood, was working on his truck at his home on April 24. Price, who grew up dairy farming and has worked on trucks, semis and machine equipment throughout the years, had his 19-foot enclosed trailer hooked onto his truck at the time.
"I drove up into the driveway and drove my truck into the garage," Price recalls. "The garage slopes down a little bit, but my driveway, when you go out, starts to slope down a lot faster."
Price made sure his tires wouldn't move, then used two jack stands to raise his truck up enough for him to climb underneath it to work.
"Parking brake was on, chocks were in place, and I thought everything was good, so I took out my drill and started undrilling the bearing casing," he remembers. "As I was drilling it out, I realized it was not the correct bearing casing, and all of a sudden, the casing and the driveline snapped out of place."
Price said it snapped out of place with such force that it knocked the jack stands and chocks out, put the transmission in neutral, and caused the truck to fall. He caught the truck for about three seconds before it became too much to bear, and he had to let go.
"When I let go, the truck started backing out quickly. That's about the time I blacked out," he said. "But I figure … as it backed out, a bolt or something caught my right ear and dragged me further underneath the truck and straightened me out, so I didn't actually get ran over (by the tires), but it folded me up in half."
As the truck pulled out of the garage, at the point where the driveway went steeper, there was enough room to finish folding Price's body over and put him in a position where he was lying on his back.
"When (the truck) fell, he was kind of up in half a sit-up position because he had his shoulder turned looking at something," Laura Price explained. "When it fell, it crushed his ribs from the right part down diagonally like an accordion. It crushed them all like a domino effect."
Casey Price ended up toward the top of his driveway and his truck and trailer jackknifed in the road. When he came to, he could hardly move. He started yelling for help and listening for cars coming by in hopes he could wave his arms and feet to get someone's attention to call 911.
About 15 to 20 minutes later, a neighbor happened to come across the accident. Laura Price was inside their home but didn't know anything had happened outside until the neighbor began pounding on their front door.
"There was blood on the ground from where the bolt had grabbed his ear and dragged him down. He was hardly breathing and his eyes were closing," Laura Price said through tears. "He was saying, 'Tell the kids I love them and I love you so much.' He was saying goodbye. … It was the worst day of my life."
Casey Price was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered he had 13 broken ribs and the other ribs that weren't broken, the tendons had torn. One of Casey Price's broken ribs punctured his lung, and his sternum was free-floating, but he had no internal bleeding.
"The surgeon said in his 35 years of being a surgeon, he's never seen something like this where (there was) all the injury to the ribs but nothing else," Laura Price said.
After spending 19 days in the hospital, Casey Price was released on Monday. He has several months of physical therapy ahead of him and psychiatric treatments for his PTSD from the accident. But looking back on the past nearly three weeks, Casey and Laura Price believe God has been watching over them during this challenging time.
"A lot of good has come out of it in our lives so far — a lot of rebuilt relationships," Casey Price mentioned. "(This accident) hurt us financially, and I'm going to be down physically for a while, but that's not what the important thing is. The important thing is what we've gained from it. There is hope. There is always hope."
Laura Price added, "So many people have reached out by donations or prayers, and I've seen the effects of those prayers being answered. This truly is a miracle."
Casey Price owns his own landscaping business, Priceless LLC. A GoFundMe has been started to help the Price family with the unexpected medical expenses, as well as for household bills and gas while Casey Price is recovering. Venmo donations can also be made to @LauraBP62.
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
