Gloucester resident Keith Nuttall has long been a man of faith, but this year he’s celebrating Christmas with even more respect for his savior than usual.

On Wednesday, Dec. 17, Nuttall was heading toward Gloucester from Ware Neck on Route 14 after a day of fishing when he ran into the back of a logging truck. Logs pierced the cab of his pickup truck into the truck bed and impaled it, and he and his vehicle were dragged 200 yards down the road before the logging truck driver realized what had happened and stopped. One log missed Nuttall’s head by three inches.

Nuttall remembers driving past Ware Episcopal Church, then having Pastor Mike Gray of Newington Baptist say he was there for him, then waking up in a Nightingale helicopter with paramedic Shannon Fitzpatrick, the daughter of his friends Ed and Sue Fitzpatrick, taking care of him. He remembers nothing of the accident itself, and has only pieced together what happened from what he’s been told by others.

Davis Wilson, a cousin of Nuttall’s wife Sandy, was two cars behind the accident, but he didn’t see it happen. He said that when he drove up the road past Ware Academy, heading toward Gloucester, the sun was glaring so badly that, even with his sunglasses on and his sun visor down, he couldn’t see anything. All he could tell was that there was debris in the road that he thought might be from a logging truck.

As he passed the accident near the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Wilson recognized Nuttall’s personalized license plate, and he immediately pulled over to help, afraid of what he might find. Nuttall’s 5-year-old granddaughter Kylie Hamersly, is usually in the truck with him at that time of day, and Wilson said he headed straight for the passenger’s side to check on her.

“It’s really bad when you look and see it’s somebody you know,” he said. “I wasn’t looking forward to what I thought I was going to be seeing.”

With some relief, he realized that Kylie wasn’t in the truck and he called out to Nuttall. He couldn’t see his friend because of the logs and the crumpled truck, but Nuttall called out to him, and Wilson ran around to the driver’s side.
“It looked like the Lord had a hand right over the top of his head,” said Wilson. “The cab just rolled right down, but where he was, the cab was still over top of him. He was extremely lucky. It just wasn’t his time.”

Wilson said that Nuttall was dazed and confused, repeatedly asking what had happened and trying to get out of the truck. But Wilson convinced him to stay where he was until rescue personnel arrived to extricate and transport him.

Word about the accident spread quickly and Sandy Nuttall, who works on Main Street, arrived shortly with the couple’s daughter, Nicole, as did Scott Finney, who had been fishing with Nuttall.

Sandy Nuttall said her late father had been a logger who could “take a logging truck and put it anywhere.” When they realized that Keith was all right, Nicole said, “Mom, Pop was driving that truck.” A couple of minutes later, State Trooper J.E. Gough, who handled the accident, told them that the logging truck driver was a man by the name of Davis.

“My father was Mr. Davis,” said Sandy.

Finney said he got a call about the accident and he and his daughter Rachel “ran up to there to see if we could help.”

“When we saw that logs had gone through and the amount of damage, I thought nobody could have survived,” said Finney. “My heart dropped. It shook Rachel and I up. It was a relief when we found out he was okay.”

Others who came upon the accident scene were certain there was a fatality involved. The Nuttalls’ friend, Larry Rilee, who lives nearby and went to the scene of the accident out of curiosity, said when he realized what had happened, he told a friend who he was talking with on the phone that “Keith’s gone.”

“I said there’s no way he survived. There’s no way anyone walked away from this,” said Rilee. “It was a sickening feeling.”

Sandy Nuttall said her husband was “virtually unharmed.” He had a small cut on the left side of his head where the sun visor wrapped around it and a bloody nose; he chipped a tooth and bit his tongue; and he had large bruises on his right shoulder and right hand.

Rescue personnel had initially called for a rescue helicopter, said Sandy Nuttall, but cancelled it when they realized her husband’s injuries appeared to be minor. However, once they discovered how confused he was, they recalled the helicopter and had it meet them at Riverside Walter Reed Hospital. From there, Nuttall was taken to Norfolk General, but was released later that evening.

“It could’ve been so much worse,” said Wilson. “He cheated death.”

“Even a logging truck can’t keep him from moving,” said Rilee. “The only thing that’s harder than an oak log is Keith Nuttall’s head.”

“Every time we think about it, we think it’s unbelievable,” said Sandy Nuttall. “Everybody who went by was sure he was dead. I know God saved him.”

1st Sgt. Caren Sterling of the Virginia State Police said that the logging truck had just made a U-turn from eastbound Route 14 into the westbound lanes and had not yet gotten up to speed when the accident occurred. Nuttall was traveling at the speed limit, she said, and the report by Trooper Gough stated that the driver indicated that sun glare was a factor. No charges have been placed at this time, she said, but the accident is still under investigation.