Three Windsor men feel lucky to be alive after a fiery crash in Detroit.
John Laporte was driving his 2017 Silverado pick-up with his friends Paul Boots and Paul's brother Phil on Thursday at around 3 p.m. They were returning to Windsor from a trip to northern Michigan.
The group was on I-75 near I-94 when a semi-truck plowed through the concrete divider and flew at their vehicle.
Michigan State Police say the semi was travelling on a nearby road when the driver lost control and jumped from the vehicle. That sent the fully-loaded rig swerving down a hill and onto the freeway.
“That cement barrier stopped the truck's momentum,” says Laporte, added the vehicle hit the back seat 10 inches from him.
Pinned to a concrete wall on the side of the road, Laporte and his friends managed to get out safely before the truck burst into flames.
It wasn't until much later that the gravity of the situation hit him.
"It didn't hit me until I was in the hospital. The X-ray tech was friendly (and) told me, ‘Maybe you have a purpose?' That struck me and I started thinking about my family," says Laporte.
"If you look at the pictures and say nobody lost their life in this, that is miraculous, and if you believe in miracles, I think we just had one.”
