Near Cologne Hero on the A1 describes what happened

COLOGNE · Matthias Erdmann from Langenfeld stopped a rolling semi-trailer truck on the A1 on Wednesday night. The driver of the truck lay motionless in the driver's cab. Erdmann spoke to us about the dangerous situation.

A man who was being celebrated as a "true hero" on Thursday first took time to sleep a few hours. "I was really pleased when I saw that everywhere in Germany my actions were being reported," he says. Matthias Erdmann is the man who stopped a driverless semi-truck on Autobahn 1 on Wednesday. With the help of a few others who saw what was happening, the 43-year-old from Langenfeld probably prevented a serious accident.

Weighing 40 tons, the truck was rolling towards Dortmund on Wednesday evening, drifting to the side again and again, scraping along the dividing concrete wall on the left lane near Wermelskirchen. Erdmann was on his way in his Kia Picanto car to his night shift in Wuppertal.

"I thought to myself, what's he doing?" says the 43-year-old. Erdmann says: "Then I saw: There's nobody at the wheel." Several other truck drivers had already noticed the swaying truck. What they couldn't see was that the driver had passed out and died, he had collapsed to the side and slid down between the seats.

Erdmann parked his Kia in the middle of the autobahn, ran to the truck and tried to open the door, while the semi-truck continued to roll down the A1 at about 15 kilometers per hour. "I had already seen several trucks blocking off the road from behind, so nobody came by, that was wonderful," he says.

Erdmann climbed over the lifeless driver and hit the brake

But the door to the driver's cab was locked, Erdmann sprinted back to his car, drove along again and then ran back to the rolling truck with a pocket knife to smash a window. "It didn't work either," he reports.

The other truck drivers who were following from behind prevented cars from overtaking and only let one of the autobahn police through. A policeman drove his vehicle in front of the 40-ton truck, to slow it down. His fellow officer had previously got out and tried to get into the cab with Erdmann. "I then climbed onto the police vehicle bumper and smashed the passenger side window with an emergency hammer," he says. The hammer had been given to him by a truck driver.

Erdmann climbed over the lifeless driver and got on the brake. "Then I turned the ignition key and that was it." He tried to feel a pulse on the unconscious man, but there was nothing. An emergency medic confirmed the death of the 54-year-old truck driver. Only later did Erdmann notice cuts on his hands and arms, which he had sustained while smashing the window. The medic bandaged them.

Truck driver probably suffered internal emergency

It is still unclear why the truck driver died. "At the moment we are assuming an internal emergency," says a spokeswoman for the Cologne police. Internal emergencies include heart attacks, strokes or blood pressure disorders. They are often the cause of serious accidents.

"We were really lucky," says Erdmann. "At Remscheid there would have been a steep downhill gradient." Only when everything was over did he realize that his hands were shaking. And what did he do after his heroic effort? "Well, I went to the hospital first and then to work," he says. His night shift as technical supervisor at Vorwerk in Wuppertal started at 9:30 pm. The police reported that Erdmann was also a truck driver. "My co-workers only wondered why I was late." Erdmann worked his shift until 6 o'clock in the morning.

(Orig. text: Claudia Hauser Translation: ck)

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