The armored truck full of money barreled down a two-lane road until it encountered a stopped SUV. The truck didn’t brake. Instead it whipped into the oncoming lane, as if to pass, and rammed into a tanker truck.
The impact ripped open the side of the armored truck and launched a worker guarding the cash into the air with such force that his seat went with him. Illinois police found him still buckled in, crushed to death.
The 49-year-old grandfather driving the tanker lived until his vehicle caught fire. He died trapped in the wreckage, his throat caked with soot, surrounded by flames.
The sole survivor was the armored truck driver. It was 2010, and he worked for the newest entrant into the race to move America’s money, international security contractor GardaWorld.
Years before he got the job, the driver didn’t slow down for another car and knocked it into the path of an oncoming truck. Garda hired him anyway, gave him virtually no training, then let him keep driving after hitting cars twice on the job — first sideswiping another vehicle and later backing into a car.
