It’s not very uncommon to hear about a brake failure causing a driver to lose control of a vehicle and ultimately crash. Seldom do you hear about a man who wasn’t even in his car when the brakes failed, leading him to be ran over by his own car, with no one in it!

Washington State troopers say 56-year-old Richard Rector’s truck came to rest in a densely forested ditch after rolling over him and killing him instantly. Reports state that Rector had stopped the vehicle to check out the brakes. That’s when the vehicle slipped out of park and completely flattened the man.

The compounding factor was likely the hill Rector parked on; the patrol says it’s between a 7 and 9.5  percent incline and if Rector had been able to safely navigate to a flatter portion of the road, the truck may not have rolled the way it did.

“Brake failure on woods roads is not unheard of,” a coworker explained.

He says that’s why the drivers inspect their trucks every morning.

“Brakes are probably the most important single thing,” he says.

Now it’s troopers who will inspect the truck and weigh the load to determine the official cause of the crash.