Ice Road Truckers' Darrell Ward Recounts The Most Dangerous Place His Truck Ever Stalled Out
Similar to "Deadliest Catch," part of the reason why History's "Ice Road Truckers" is so captivating is because its subject matter is so incredibly dangerous. The series chronicles the lives of truck drivers who operate across some of the most remote Arctic regions in Alaska and Canada, and who have to drive their trucks across frozen lakes and rivers in order to complete their deliveries.
Their journeys across these "ice roads" are incredibly perilous, as the truckers have to be constantly moving or risk falling straight through the ice to their deaths. The drivers also have to contend with some absolutely horrendous weather conditions, which can leave them essentially blind at the wheel if they're driving throughout the night. The extreme conditions these truckers have to endure, combined with the perilous road under their wheels, means that an ice road trucker's worst nightmare is to have their truck stall out – leaving them stranded in the wilderness, or possibly even causing them to sink right through the ice.
That said, for former "Ice Road Truckers" star Darrell Ward (who tragically passed away in a plane accident back in 2016) the worst place his truck ever stalled had nothing to do with a frozen lake at all.
Darrell Ward once tumbled down a mountainside after stalling out
In 2012, History interviewed Darrell Ward in order to promote his addition to the cast of "Ice Road Truckers" Season 6, and it was during this interview that Ward revealed the most dangerous place that he had ever had his truck stall out. "I was hauling logs out of the northern Rockies in Montana," Ward explained. "I come down into a switchback [a zigzag road on a steep hill] with one set of chains on. It was slick. It was ice. Come around the corner... [back] trailer starts shoving the lead trailer sideways. Shoves me off the mountainside."
Admittedly, this sounds less like stalling out than it does simply tipping over an icy switchback road and tumbling down the mountainside — a fact that Ward himself seemed aware of, since he laughed while telling the story and said "it pretty much stalled out." Regardless, there's no doubt that Ward's tumble off the mountainside was one of the most harrowing moments in career as a trucker, and he was lucky to have survived such a dangerous situation.
Although it may not have happened out on the open ice, there's no doubt that Ward's nerve-racking crash off the mountainside is something that no trucker ever wishes to experience.