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A windrow of 2 x 12 dimensial lumber was laid down in the barrow pit alongside Highway 83 just above the inlet to Salmon Lake when a truck driver's load became unbalanced, causing the truck to tip on its side and skid down the highway, narrowly missing a head-on with an oncoming car whose driver averted a serious tragedy by pulling off the road as far as he could.
by Gary Noland
Seeley Swan Pathfinder
April 1, 1999
A Seeley Lake family coming home in a van last Thursday avoided
a head-on collision with a semi truck and trailer, but their car
was totalled by hundreds of pieces of 2 x 12 lumber when the truck
and trailer overturned, spilling its load.
Highway Patrolman Scott Hoffman credited the van's driver,
Monty Ferdinand, with averting what could have been a real tragedy
when Ferdinand drove his van off the road as far as possible to
avoid the out-of-control truck and trailer headed directly at
him. 
Ferdinand, his wife, Suzan, and their12-year-old daughter, Token, all sustained "lots and lots of bruises," Ferdinand said in a telephone call Tuesday, with he and his wife also sustaining broken ribs. All had minor cuts and lacerations.
They were transported to St. Pat's by ambulance and Token was life-flighted to St. Pat's. All were released the same day.
The accident happened at 1:40 p.m. Thursday, Mar. 25.
Hoffman said the truck driver was from Idaho and had left Seeley Lake's Pyramid Montain Lumber plant with a load of dimensional lumber.
Entering a series of curves at excessive speed on Highway 83 at the inlet to Salmon Lake, the south-bound truck driver lost control, swerving into the wrong lane and trying to correct when the truck and trailer tipped over on the sides and skidded down the highway.
The falling lumber, and not the truck, hit the north-bound1993 Dodge Caravan van the Ferdinands were riding in.
"I got out of the way of the truck, but not out of the way of the lumber," Ferdinand said. He could only get so far off the highway when the mountain cliff stopped him.
Trooper Hoffman said he estimated the truck driver's speed at between 65 and 75 miles per hour. The driver was cited for failure to remain on the right side of the road, Hoffman said.
"This would have been an extremely serious accident if he (Ferdinand) hadn't been attentive to his driving," Hoffman said, adding that Ferdinand also is a truck driver and that experience may have helped him react when he saw the truck approaching the curves at a high speed.