Father, son stop out-of-control semi-truck on Kansas highway

It was an action movie come to life.

A Kansas farmer and his son are being hailed as heroes after they made a daring rescue of a semi-truck driver who suffered a medical episode on a highway.

The trucker was traveling west on Interstate 70 in Sherman County on Tuesday when he suddenly “blacked out” behind the wheel, Sherman County Sheriff Burton Pianalto said.

The truck entered the median and fortunately stayed between both lanes of traffic for about a quarter mile as it slowed down.

When the father and son duo who were traveling in the same direction spotted the out-of-control truck, they leapt into action like something out of a James Bond movie.

The truck had slowed down enough that the son, Brady Ginther, was able to jump onto the vehicle’s passenger side. He tried to get inside, but the door was locked.

Ginther asked his father, Brent Ginther, to throw him a hammer. He caught it and then smashed the window, crawled into the truck and brought it to a stop about one-eighth of a mile before a 30-foot drop.

“This action more than likely saved the life of the truck driver along with protecting all the other travelers on I-70 and Highway 27,” Pianalto said.

“It is amazing what people will do to help others they do not know.”

Brent Ginther told KWCH that he’s often on the highway traveling to and from his farming land in western Kansas and eastern Colorado. He said he initially didn’t think much of the truck when he first saw it.

“I said, ‘What the heck is going on there?’ And all my hired men who were with me just said, ‘Well, there’s nobody driving that truck’,” he said.

He said they realized that they needed to shut the truck off when his son bravely lept aboard.

The truck “got it shut off just in time,” he said.

Brent and Brady Ginther are receiving a lot of love from the community for their quick thinking since the Sherman County Sheriff’s Office shared the story on social media.

“They need some kind of enormous award from the mayor, governor, and president. This is incredible,” one Facebook user opined, while another wrote, “Absolutely remarkable they were able to make this happen. Thankful they were in the right place and willing to help. Hero for sure.”

“We appreciate everything and (we’re) just good farm guys and we’d help anybody in a situation if anybody needed help,” Brent Ginther said.