Sgt. Kevin Meyer, a flight medic, and 1st Lt. Nick Spangler, a Medivac pilot, came upon the accident shortly after 10:15 a.m. Friday as they were crossing the George Wilson Road overpass on their way to a Heroes' Tribute at Fort Hood.

The men said they found the dump truck driver, later identified as Dale Timms Jr., face down on the highway with a pile of dirt on top of him. Spangler said he and Meyer pulled Timms Jr. out from under the pile, turned him over and Meyer went to work trying to save his life.

Meyer said that when he got to Timms Jr. he found his pulse but noticed that Timms Jr. was not breathing. Meyer said he cleared Timms' airway and applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until other paramedics arrived.

Several people witnessed the accident, which shut down the highway for four hours, including TxDOT spokesperson Ken Roberts, who was on his way to work.

He said a street sweeper that works under a state contract was cleaning up the chat, or sand, from the highway's bridges. Two support vehicles trailed the sweeper, the last of which had a blinking sign indicating to drivers that they should merge around the slower moving vehicles.

Roberts said that the dump truck was in the right-hand lane when it clipped the back of the last vehicle. He said it looked like the driver then overcorrected and lost control before he slammed into the back of the first trail vehicle, causing the dump truck to spill part of its load and overturn.

The dump truck slid to a stop in the middle of the highway, the two sweeper support vehicles stopped on the shoulder near the bridge guardrail.

'By the time I called 9-1-1, the guy in the (last trail) vehicle had climbed out of the window,' said Clarence Franklin of Killeen.

That driver was walking around the accident scene and did not appear to be hurt.

People on the scene of the accident identified Rusty Kitchens as the driver of the vehicle that was rear-ended. After the accident he sat silent in the cab of a pickup truck, a trickle of blood running down his forehead and his hands shaking from the trauma.

Less than 40 minutes after the crash a man who identified himself as the owner of Bell County Dirt Company arrived at the scene and said the overturned truck belonged to his company.

The truck had a decal with the words Bell County on it, but the bottom half of the decal was missing.

The man handed a Telegram reporter a business card with the name Dale Timms on it.

When asked if he knew who was driving the truck, Timms said, 'my son.'

Timms said he was building a road on FM 436, waiting for his son to bring a load of dirt, when another contractor called him and told him about the accident.

Timms was called three hours after the accident to check on the condition of his son.

'He didn't make it,' he said.

Timms Jr. was from Belton. He was divorced and has a 16-year-old son, Dale Ray Timms Jr., who attends Belton High School.

Two ambulances and a helicopter responded, as did three fire departments - Belton, Nolanville, and Stillhouse Hollow. Belton police served as the lead investigative agency, since the area was just annexed into the city on Dec. 19.

The two Fort Hood soldiers that came to the aid of Timms Jr. said they returned from Iraq late last year.

Meyers, 26, was asked if his time in Iraq helped him to respond so quickly to the accident.

'I saw a lot of trauma,' he said as he crossed the U.S. 190 median with a cigarette in one hand and blood all over his face, thigh and arms.