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Karen: no one else was hurt in the accident so I would guess he's just going to get a ticket for wreckless driving. When they say "charges" it sounds so ominous. This is a workman's comp claim; would they actually provide a lawyer for him? Because we can't afford one on our own. Hopefully, it won't be an issue.

Yes, it was hard to hear about - especially since the ER left a message on my work phone and I didn't get to it right away. Talk about your blood running cold...

ABC: the company he works for has fired every other employee who has rolled a tanker so I expect this to happen to him, too. After all, he ruined a $100K tanker and his company will have to foot the bill for the clean-up. If it was up to his immediate boss, he probably wouldn't be fired - he actually came to see my husband on Friday afternoon after having been at the accident scen all day; he seemed pretty shook up. But it's not up to my husband's boss but rather their Corporate offices. The only thing he's got going for him is his pristine driving record up until now. He's won many safety awards and has gotten many safety bonuses plus he's in their Million Mile Club, meaning that he's driven over a million miles for them so far. I just hope that they'll take this into consideration when making their decision.

Thanks for the support everyone.

Dar: yes, it's legal to fire him for this - Florida is an employment-at-will state; you can basically be fired for almost anything.

Phoebe: the white stuff surrounding the tanker was actually the flame-retardent foam they spray all over so that it hopefully won't explode. But yes, he did have diesel fuel raining down upon him as he was trying to extricate himself from the cab. I don't know what kind of long-term effects that could have on him but he's always getting fuel spilled on him in the course of his job. I would guess that long-term exposure could cause cancer of some type - or not - he seems to have a guardian angel on his side!

Thanks again, gals.

There's no proof here that there was even a car in front of him despite the skid marks in the road that seem to indicate he braked for a reason. Also there are no witnesses to this to validate my husband's story so they've only got his word to go on. So if he gets charged with wreckless driving, he will be fired regardless of his prior excellent driving record. It doesn't seem like it now but maybe it's a blessing in disguise.

If you read the comments some folks have made on the various articles on that news website, these people don't believe my husband at all - they're convinced he's at fault and he's lying about it because he doesn't want to get into trouble. They can't even consider that another driver might actually be at fault. Not one of them cares if he's okay or not. They might be interested to learn that my husband and other drivers like him deal with idiots on the highway every, single day but because they're professionals and very skilled at what they do, they are able to avoid having horrific accidents with these morons. People pull out in front of my husband's tanker all of the time; they inexplicably slow down while he's barrelling down at them at 60 miles and hour not realizing that he can't stop on a dime like a car can. They tailgate him, they flip him the bird, etc. He's gotta deal with all kinds of stupid crap from regular drivers and yet they have the nerve to blame him for this. Everyone keeps asking my husband why didn't he just run straight into the car instead of trying to avoid it; ironically, he would have probably fared a whole lot better had he done so. But of course my husband didn't want to kill that fool and have it on his conscience for the rest of his life. Besides, if his company thinks this is expensive now, just imagine the law suit settlement that jerk's family would have gotten had Ron plowed into that car on purpose. THEN everyone would say that he should have sacrificed himself!

Anyway, we still don't know if he's going to be fired. I'm sure they're waiting to drop that bomb until after he gets out of the hospital so I would guess we'll know some time this week. I do know that the corporate offices are going over his records with a fine tooth comb so it appears as though they're looking for reasons to justify booting him.

Thanks again ladies.

Yes, I agree that my husband is lucky to be alive and to have survived this accident with what have turned out to be relatively minor injuries. He could have died or ended up a quadraplegic. I've also told him that if they want to fire him after 13 years of loyal service and an exemplary safety record, then they can go to hell and for him not to worry about it, we'll get it figured out somehow. So far, they haven't fired him but they might be waiting until he gets out of the hospital to give him the bad news. Well, he gets discharged tomorrow so I guess we'll be finding out pretty soon. Perhaps they're waiting for the results of the tox screen to come back - I would think they would be back by now though since blood and urine were taken from him on Friday for this test. Regardless, he's the big moneymaker in our family and it's going to be quite painful for a while to do without his salary until he can find another job. I just have to wonder what kind of job he'll be able to get now that he's got this rollover on his record.