Woman who survived direct hit from I-40 mudslide in North Carolina fulfills promise to friend
Donnette Keys of Tucson, Arizona, was on the last day of a cross-country road trip to bring her friend home when a mudslide slammed into her truck along Interstate 40 in western North Carolina.
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Dashcam footage shot on Friday morning shows the moment a couple barely escaped a mudslide that came crashing onto an interstate in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. (Courtesy: Alan Keffer via Storyful)
Good friends are hard to find, so anyone who has Donnette Keys in their social circle should consider themselves lucky.
Keys, of Tucson, Arizona, embarked on a cross-country road trip last week, bringing her friend home to Chesapeake, Virginia.
"She's in her 70s… (and) wanted to be near family for the last few years of her life," Keys said. "And that's what I was helping her do."
On the last night of their trip, they stayed in Asheville and then set out the next morning along Interstate 40 for Chesapeake.
Mudslide on a North Carolina mountain
The mountains near Asheville. (Tina Haver Currin / National Park Service / FOX Weather)
As they reached about 20 miles east of Asheville, through the mountainous region of western North Carolina with her friend's car in tow, they hit heavy rain that caused visibility to plummet.
Keys said they pulled off of the highway twice, hoping to let the rain pass.
"I saw trucks pulled over and I thought, 'You know, that looks like a safe place. We're going to pull off right there,'" she recounted.
But as the rain seemed to be letting up, and Keys was putting the truck back into gear, a mudslide raced down the mountain and across the interstate, slamming into her truck and other nearby vehicles.
Looped video of the mudslide. (Alan Keffer via Storyful / FOX Weather)
Keys’ truck could be seen on a passing car’s dash cam video in the moments before the wall of mud struck their vehicles.
Still image from dash cam video showing the moment before Donette Key's car was struck by a mudslide on Interstate 40 in western North Carolina. (Alan Keffer via Storyful)
It happened so quickly, according to Keys, noting that the lead-up to the mudslide was quiet.
"We heard no cracking. We never heard – no boom, no slide, no nothing. We heard nothing," she said. She added that the rain was so heavy, that if the mountain made any sound before the mudslide, it would've been muted by the rain.
She said her truck was buried in mud and pushed so that it was perpendicular to the road, facing the top of the mountain.
A triptych of Keys's view over the dashboard seconds after the mudslide. (Donnette Keys / FOX Weather)
"We really thought we had been hit by a semi-truck that didn’t see us," Keys said. "We had no idea it was a mudslide."
She said her friend remained calm and collected, but she did not feel the same way.
"I was terrified," she said. "I am trying to protect her because my whole job is to get her home safe to her family. And I think I might have been a little bit shocked. I was scared."
She noted how, because of the truck’s new position, they were in danger of another mudslide coming down on them and right through their windshield.
A Good Samaritan in a silver pickup truck
Keys's red truck, with her friend's black vehicle in tow, surrounded by mud. (Donnette Keys / FOX Weather)
The two women ended up trapped in the truck for two hours, as Keys attempted to contact 9-1-1 and until first responders could reach the scene.
However, a Good Samaritan came out of the blue to help Keys and her friend – a young man driving a silver Toyota pickup truck pulled up to the women and asked if they were okay.
At this act of compassion, Keys was touched.
"I kind of got really emotional and broke down right there because I was trying to figure out what had happened to us," she said.
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The young man, upon assessing the situation, left to retrieve a rope. He returned and then, using the rope, helped Keys dislodge her truck from the mud and their trailer, and left.
"I didn't even get his name. He wouldn't even give me his name. He said, ‘It's all right, I’d do for anybody’ and he left," Keys said. "He was the only friendly, concerned, decent person on that entire mountain that whole day."
‘As close as we could get to civilization’
Aerial shot of the site of the mudslide, after crews began clearing mud and debris from the interstate. (NC DOT / FOX Weather)
Despite being freed from the mud, Keys and her friend’s troubles weren’t over. They struggled to find gas and shelter, as the conditions caused by Helene were becoming worse.
Power was out, so they were unable to pump gas into their truck. Keys said she only had about 20 miles’ worth of gas left in her vehicle.
They were able to make their way to the town of Marion, where they stayed at a motel.
"They sold me their last two rooms, so I could put my friend and I just someplace dry, someplace dry and safe, that wasn't in the truck," she said.
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They were then able to contact friends in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who drove what was usually a 5-hour drive but turned into a 10-hour drive to bring gas to Keys.
They were able to go retrieve the vehicle Keys was pulling for her friend out of the mudslide, and onto another trailer.
At that point, Keys and her friend finally made their way to Chesapeake, where her friend stayed behind to be with her family.
Promise of a homecoming
Sunrise in Tucson. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP / Getty Images)
When Keys spoke to FOX Weather, she was on her way back home to Tucson, and had stopped over to see her sisters in Oklahoma as previously planned.
She was looking forward to seeing her husband and two daughters again, but grateful that her friend was able to be with family.
"If you ask anyone in my family, if I tell you I'm doing something that's going to happen, no matter how long it takes me, it's going to happen," she said. "My whole mission was to get her home to her family, and that's all I was doing."