Wisconsin: Ray’s Towing manager, semi passenger speak after wreck in Mitchell Interchange

Shocking dash camera video showed the moment a semi barreled into a tow truck near the Mitchell Interchange on Monday, Aug. 26. The tow truck driver suffered a broken leg, two broken ribs, and a cut above his eye, but he was expected to be OK. Based on the extensive damage to his truck, his co-workers said he shouldn't have survived.

"This is extreme," said Mark Salentine, manager at Ray's Towing. "You would expect a fatality."

Salentine said his employee, Joe Altenhofen, was responding to a call along I-94 at Layton Avenue when a semi passing by the scene smashed into the driver's side of his truck.

"He reached for his door handle," said Salentine. "Then, could see in the mirror the trailer of the semi coming at him. The next thing he knew, he was being woken up on the floor of his truck by the Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies."

The damage to the cabin of the semi was equally extensive.

"There was a windshield here," said Yassine Hamid. "This is broke out,."

Hamid was inside at the time, asleep in the back bed, while his co-worker, Ali Abubakar, drove.

"I close this one, and then other side, this one," Hamid explained.

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