Trucker haunted by those swept away after offering flatbed trailer as refuge from Tennessee floodwaters

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A truck driver did his best to help a group of people stranded in East Tennessee floodwaters by offering his flatbed truck as temporary refuge during Hurricane Helene last week.

Truck driver Michael Dorsey of Humble, Texas was in Erwin, Tennessee on September 27th to pick up a load of gas piping and haul it to Arizona. However, Dorsey found himself in the middle of a dangerous situation when the Nolichucky River next to the Impact Plastics facility began to rise, trapping him and several other facility employees in the floodwaters.

Dorsey says that he was waiting out the flooding in his truck when he noticed about 10 people becoming trapped by floodwaters in the parking lot. He called them to climb onto his truck, where the 10 people held onto the load of pipes. Eventually, debris swept up in the river knocked against the truck, causing it to overturn and knocking at least five people off of the trailer and into the water.

Two of the five people died in the water, and the three others are still unaccounted for. The five people that survived the incident credit Dorsey for keeping them alive during the ordeal, and say they were able to hold onto the load of pipes by clinging onto the straps. Dorsey says that he was helping a woman hold onto the pipes when he was hit in the head by something, causing him to let go of her. The pipes then floated downstream with the group clinging to them until they came to rest against a pile of debris. The semi truck was also pushed against a tree by the massive flooding.

“I prayed and everything and believed we were going to make it, but I can’t lie and say I wasn’t afraid because that was a hell of a situation,” Dorsey said to Knox News.

“I mean, I don’t look at it like I’m no type of hero or nothing, just that God put me in the right place at the right time, I guess. Because if I hadn’t stayed … they would’ve gotten washed away. God puts you in situations and you never know what it’s going to be. So, I was just at the right place at the right time.”

Dorsey says he was able to fly back home to Texas after the ordeal, but is still looking for work as he waits for insurance to reimburse him for his destroyed tractor trailer, which he used to support his wife and five children.

He says he is happy to have helped people, but it still haunted by the woman he lost a grip on in the water.

“They’re not really nightmares, but when I close my eyes, I keep reliving what happened,” he said. “Because I ended up letting her go and kept telling her before all of that happened, I got her. I mean, I didn’t know I was going to get hit upside the head by whatever hit me upside the head, but I just feel bad because I didn’t hold onto her.”