4:20 am: Larry Joe Freeman
Hattiesburg, Mississippi: Trucker Larry Joe Freeman, 56, crashed while hauling a load of Little Debbie snacks on Interstate 59 near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Friends say he was trying to get home in time for his nephew's wedding. Police think he may have fallen asleep at the wheel of the tractor-trailer, which drifted off the shoulder and careened over a guardrail, plunging more than 200 feet into a treed median. Freeman was the only truck driver to die that day in a big rig crash. Fatigue is a particular problem for truckers (see Status Report, October 7, 2006). He was a retired Hattiesburg city firefighter, and an inspector when he left the department. For years he worked alongside Hattiesburg Fire Marshal Andy Cartlidge, whose nickname for him was "Honey Bear." Cartlidge says Freeman trained him as a rookie. "He was something. He helped me out a lot." Outside the fire department the men took on extra work installing fencing. After Freeman retired from the city, he went to work as a trucker, a natural move for someone who'd spent 20 years driving and operating fire apparatus. "Larry still had many good years left in him," Battalion Chief David Webster told the Hattiesburg American newspaper. He called the former firefighter "a professional who took his job seriously."
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