Thanks to everyone who entered the Energizer Inductive Phone Charged Contest. Gizmodo readers have spoken and have chosen the most deserving thank-God-my-phone-was-charged moment.
Congratulations to David, who has won an Energizer Inductive Charger, built with Qi technology, the universal wireless charging standard, on account of his harrowing account of heroism posted again below, in case you missed it.
As a professional truck driver it is not uncommon for me to be the first to come across the scene of an accident. The one that I came across this week made me very grateful that my Droid X was charged!
At about 3:30 AM just across the Virginia/North Carolina line headed north on I-85, a navy blue minivan passed me, traveling the speed limit and staying in his lane. As the van was passing another tractor-trailer I saw brake lights from both of the vehicles. The van then braked again and put on his emergency flashers. The tractor-trailer continued. Assuming that the van may have hit something in the road I slowed down so that I could safely dodge whatever it was. As I approached the van I could see that it was still on the inside lane of the interstate and people were exiting it, or what was left of it. The drivers side front of the van was gone, along with the tire, and most of the outside of the van on that side!
I pulled my rig over to the shoulder of the interstate about 20 yards past the accident and turned on my emergency flashers so that there would be plenty of room to get between us. As I ran over to the occupants of the van I started the 911 call. There was an elderly couple and four men that appeared to be in there thirties around the van. As the emergency operator picked up it occurred to me that I had failed to note the mile marker of the accident as I approached. I asked the operator if she could pin point me through my phones gps, she said she could try and in a few seconds they had me located. I handed my tactical light to one of the men to get the attention of on coming traffic and warn them to slow down and change lanes.
Having no light to look at the cut on the older gentlemen's head, I used my Droid X's MotoLED app to give me the light I needed to asses his injuries. As I was tending to him I noticed an approaching tractor-trailer. He should have been down-shifting by now. Uh-oh. The young man I gave my tactical light to was waving it franticly but the rig was not slowing down! I stepped towards the young man to pull him out of the lane when the driver of the truck must have suddenly noticed us. As he slammed on the brakes his rig started to jack-knife. I thought as I watched his trailer come around, "if I can just grab the young mans sleeve I can pull him under the trailer as it passes over us." As I reached for the young man with the light, the driver of the rig released his brake and the his vehicle straightened out. He drove in to the emergency lane and back out again before coming to a stop some fifty yards past us. I still do not know how he avoided hitting my set of doubles. As he drove off I handed my Droid X to the man with the light and set the motoLED app to strobe. This seemed to work much better at getting the attention of approaching drivers. Everyone else slowed and went safely around us.
After giving my statement to a patrolman, I retrieved my Droid X and left to continue back to Richmond. After the initial call, GPS activation, flashlight, and strobe, I still had more than enough battery life to call the drivers that work with me and recount the events and warn them about the area as they approached. Keep your phone charged. You never know what you may need it for!
Congratulations again, David, for wining an Energizer Inductive Charger and thank you and your Droid X for being a model Good Samaritan. Click here for more information on the Energizer Inductive Charger.