This Ice Road Truckers Accident Could Have Ended A Lot Worse
Since its debut in 2007, "Ice Road Truckers" has proven to be one of History's biggest ratings juggernauts, debuting with the highest ratings for any original show on the channel, according to the New York Times. The show depicts truckers who make dangerous deliveries over ice roads in order to make their entire year's salary in just a couple of months. Per one report in Alt Driver, ice road truck drivers can make almost $50,000 working just a few months a year, making it a tempting, but treacherous, profession.
While the show went off the air in 2017 there's been talk of reviving "Ice Road Truckers" now that the COVID-19 pandemic is a little more under control. After all, viewers clearly loved to tune in for the dangerous exploits of these truckers, but also for the likable people that the show featured. The series did a great job of highlighting the personalities of the truckers, and not just their perilous jobs.
One such popular personality from the show was Alex Debogorski, a tough-as-nails trucker. According to the bio on his website, Debogorski is son of a British paratrooper from the Red Berets, and with over 40 years of experience as an ice road driver, he has probably gotten himself out of his fair share of scrapes. Still, there was one accident that Alex got into on the show that was almost a deadly disaster.
Alex almost collided with a tanker
In the Season 9 finale, "Icy Alliance," Alex Debogorski is seen racing against the melting ice to deliver his last haul of the season before, at a blind curb, a 20-ton tanker coming the opposite way nearly collides with Debogorski's truck. Both drivers managed to apply their brakes in time to avoid a full-on collision, with the tanker merely side swiping Debogorski's truck.
Debogorski was lucky that the accident wasn't worse, and a few lucky breaks played out in his favor. The first piece of luck was that the tanker happened to be empty at the time of the accident, meaning there was no fire or explosion. "You hit a fuel truck, the first thing you think this is going to be a big fire," Debogorski explained in the episode.
Another stroke of good luck was the fact that neither trucker was going any faster, as Debogorski also pointed out in the episode, as that would have certainly caused a more severe accident. Ultimately, the bumper of the tanker hit the wheel on Debogorski's truck, causing only minor damage and no injuries to either driver.
Debogorski's Instagram account still shows fairly recent pictures of him ice road trucking, despite all the money he made off of the show and book deals. That's a pretty impressive feat, considering he's over 80 years old. But, if he has the wits to avoid an accident like this one, perhaps he feels that it's where he belongs when he's behind the wheel of one of those trucks.