“I yelled ‘Run.'...Tried to run, then realized we wasn’t going to get away. So we tried to jump over the vehicle, and the next thing we knew, we landed. Two of us landed down into a creek. After he hit us, he did proceed to hit another one of our firefighters, and that threw him. After he hit him, he hit a fourth firefighter..."

That's how Kingsport Fire Capt. Gene Lady described an incident on a Tennessee highway last week that left him and three others injured.

He was standing on the ramp with others when he saw an SUV traveling in the fast lane on I-26, swerve at the last second and drove up the exit toward them. Lady told WJHL he and a Sullivan County Emergency Medical Service (EMS) paramedic were the first to be hit.

The captain said he has torn tissue in his back, bruised ribs, a shoulder and knee injuries as well as road rash. He and two other firefighters are facing surgeries.

“I’m a big guy on statistics and percentages, and we’re not sure of the speed just yet we were hit at, but we know it was 50 plus miles an hour,” Lady said. “There’s a 25% survival rate to that, and if you Google, three out of the four people when hit by a vehicle at 50 miles per hour plus will die. At 58 miles per hour, it’s 10%. We were fortunate enough four of us walked away from this.”

Tennessee’s Move Over Law requires drivers to change into an adjacent lane or significantly slow down when approaching stationary emergency, utility or disabled vehicles displaying flashing lights.

Charges are pending against the 19-year-old who struck the firefighters, according to the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

“Please slow down, and please move over. There’s people working there on the scene. They all have families, and all four of us weren’t sure if we were going to get to go home and see our families the next morning.”