Accidents happen

The last thing Jacobs remembers before ending up in Wichita’s Wesley Medical Center was turning off cruise control and down shifting. On June 5, 2012, Jacobs drove down highway 50 just two miles outside of Coolidge. He lost control of the large semi as he choked on a mint. His truck hit the guard rail, and flipped over to the side of the road, which then left the vehicle in three pieces. 

 “When this was happening, I seriously thought ‘this is it, I’m going to die’ It’s a weird feeling,” Jacobs says. 

Jacobs suffered from injuries such as a severe concussion, 40% vision loss in his right eye, as well as needing surgery on his thumb and pointer finger. He also says he has short term memory loss that results from the concussion. 

“Sometimes I’m talking to someone, but I’ll forget what I’m saying. I’ve learned to live with it,” Jacobs says. “They told me I would never be able to drive again, but I’ve proved them wrong.”

Despite the struggles that came after the accident, Jacobs persevered and was able to get behind the wheel again. He says that most people would give up, but not him, “to me, you continue on.”

Burger experienced the same kind of miracle accident, two weeks before beginning her CDL classes at SCCC. She and her husband were driving in South Carolina, east bound on the interstate. Her husband began to cough, which she thought was a heart attack, but she was wrong.

Burger’s husband blacked out and hit the steering wheel. Immediately, she attempted to grab the wheel, only worrying for the safety and health of her husband. It was too late. With his weight on the wheel, her husband pulled the truck to the left of the interstate, drove past steel cables and the truck ended up west bound. 

Seward County Community College offers CDL license classes on campus which lasts for six weeks. At the moment, the class has began to practice on the back roads, where they are taught the gears first and how to drive slowly before they are taken on the route in town.

A 40-foot drop to the ground came shortly after, propelling Burger forward as her husband stayed in place, still blacked out. Adrenaline rushed through her, and she recalls only her leg burning but feeling no pain otherwise. 

“There was definitely a higher power watching over us that day. We drove past mountains, and it didn’t happen there, we drove over a bridge and it didn’t happen there. The fact that God wanted it to happen over there is totally okay with me,” Burger says. 

Burger suffered a cut lip and three knocked out teeth. Like Jacobs, this accident did not frighten or discourage her, but only made her stronger. Burger now decides that she wants to leave her job at law enforcement and become a trucker after contemplating it for some time. 

“I’m not afraid to pursue a career in CDL because I know and recognize the dangers that come with the profession. If anything, surviving that crash really showed me that this is what I’m supposed to do and God has a bigger plan for me and my family,” Burger says. 

Once Burger finishes the CDL program at Seward, she expects to find a new sense of freedom that her 9-5 office job could never give her, driving with the music up, windows down and being her own boss.