As some of you know, I drive a "monster truck" at work. It's literally the size of a house. The tires are 12 feet tall. The cab of the truck sits about 20 feet up, and it weighs over a million pounds when loaded.

Anyway, keep in mind the size of the trucks we are talking about here.

Today, I almost had another truck run into me. I was loaded, going uphill at about 5 MPH, and the other truck was coming downhill, empty. The ramp was wet from the water truck doing the "dust control" thing, and the driver was a trainee. Thank God she had a very experienced driver with her!!

The other truck started sliding, because of going too fast on the wet surface, and came within about 5 feet of hitting me. I stopped on the uphill ramp, and waited for the impact.

Fortunately, the experienced driver grabbed the wheel in the truck coming toward me and whipped it the other way so the truck veered away from me at the last second.

My heart stopped. I couldn't breathe for a minute or so. It was truly the worst moment I have had in my 2 1/2 years at the mine.

The trainee is ok now, and has learned what NOT to do in a slide, and also what she should have done. Thank God she was with an experienced driver who knew what to do.

In the time I have worked at the mine, I have slid sideways downhill, I have had several close calls in lots of ways, but this is the first one that really scared me. I could see the eyes of the people in the other truck, they were that close to me. There was an 80 foot drop on the other side of a 10 foot berm from where I was.

Not the best day I've ever had.

Frankie