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Caught On Camera: Person Who Captures Truck Going Airborne Off I-96 Speaks With FOX 17

Posted at 10:26 PM, Aug 20, 2013
and last updated 2013-08-21 05:11:36-04

LANSING, Mich. – It’s a two-second video capturing a pick-up and trailer in mid-air.   The person on the other end of the phone camera was Alexandria Stack, a Western Michigan University College student.

“It was the craziest thing I had ever seen,” said Stack.  “It was so scary.”

Stack was driving west on I-96 around 6:00 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 16. “I felt a piece of grass hit me sharply so I looked over and it was a car driving in the median.”

Stack said the at first she thought the driver of the pickup, Mark Moerland, 58, of Kentwood, missed an exit and was attempting to turn around, so she slowed down and began recording with her phone, she said.

“I saw him go over the overpass, and I super-freaked out, and I didn’t know what to do. So I called my mom, and she had me pull over and call the police,” said Stack.

“It appears what caused him to go into the median is a medical condition,” said Sgt. Matthew Flint with the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department.

The pick-up was traveling up to 70 miles an hour and went airborne for more than 70 feet from where it left the median 20 feet above, Stack said. “In the spring, the ravine can be full, 10 to 15 feet of water,” said Sgt. Flint.

When first responders pulled out Moerland, he was conscious and alert, according to Sgt. Flint.

“He had a broken leg, a dislocated ankle, a collapsed lung that he will recover from, and then a lower lumbar fracture,” he said.

Sgt. Flint spoke with Moerland’s wife, who said Moerland is expected to make a full recovery.