Food-truck workers say God intervened before crash

Two MudMan Burgers employees of Whitefish recently narrowly escaped with their lives after they said a heavenly voice warned them to flee their broken-down food truck seconds before a semi truck plowed into it.

Kenneth Bryant, 27, and Jordan Cole, 29, were traveling from Montana to Philadelphia on Nov. 12 with three of their colleagues to serve food at a men’s church conference when electrical problems left their truck disabled on the side of the Ohio Turnpike in Newton Township about 8 p.m.

Bryant and Cole volunteered to stay behind with the truck while their three companions went for help.

Their phones were dying and the truck sat in a precarious spot on the roadside, so Bryant said he went around to the back of the truck to charge their phones using a generator, while Cole stayed up front in the cab.

“At one point, I just had this thought of a semi, of the truck just getting hit,” Bryant said. “I didn’t think too much of it because there were a lot of trucks going by, but it was a pretty predominant thought.”

Driven by the image in his head, Bryant grabbed his phone and hopped out of the back of the truck, rounding the corner just as Cole stepped out of the cab.

Bryant said he looked down the road and saw headlights approaching as a semi-truck skidded out of control.

Within a split second of Cole yelling “Truck!,” the semi barreled into the MudMan food truck, crushing the vehicle against a guard rail.

According to Bryant, the impact pushed the food truck into Cole, knocking him over the rail and down the hill into the ditch below.

Bryant, however, said he does not remember how he got over the railing in time.

“That was probably the closest I’ve come to death,” Bryant said.

In the moments following the crash, the men agreed that they’d both experienced God’s protection, Bryant through his vision of the crash and Cole through what he described as a verbal warning.

“We followed the voice,” Bryant said. “For whatever reason, in God’s perfect timing, he was able to get us off that truck.”

According to a report by Fox 8 News in Cleveland, the driver of the semi survived, suffering only minor injuries.

While waiting for emergency responders to arrive, Bryant said he remembers taking a moment to look back at the mangled food truck hanging over the guardrail and feeling at peace.

He quoted a Bible verse from Genesis in which Joseph, after having been sold into slavery by his brothers, rose to a place of power and reunited with them.

Genesis 50:20 says, “As for me, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

“That night, the enemy was seeking to take the lives of two of God’s children and through it the Lord kept us safe,” Bryant said.

Undeterred from their mission to reach Philadelphia, the men and the rest of their team rented a food truck and continued on to their destination.

Upon arriving in Philadelphia for the conference in their rented food truck, Bryant said he and his team met with the congregation that had prayed over their trip from Montana.

“Something did happen,” Bryant said. “Our lives were spared, and even more, we see God’s hand in it afterward.”

MudMan Burgers, a restaurant originating in Whitefish, partners with Potter’s Field Ministry, a discipleship organization committed to working with and supporting local churches both locally and all over the world.

With locations across the Flathead Valley, the restaurant now also reaches other states with its food trucks, donating all its profits to the ministry and furthering its ability to train and send missionaries to foreign countries and local communities.

Since the accident, Bryant said he has come to realize how fragile and fleeting life is and now aims to make the rest of his time on earth meaningful by spreading the love of Jesus.

“I don’t feel special at all. I don’t feel chosen,” he said.”Life can be taken at any given moment, whether it be by a semi truck or by cancer or an illness.”

Bryant feels the reason God spoke to him and allowed him to live was to share the story with the world and to spread God’s message.

“Anybody who reads the article, I would just hope that as they’re reading this, that they realize that their life is valuable and meaningful and they do have a purpose and they are loved by God,” he said.

For more information about MudMan Burgers or Potter’s Field Ministry, visit https://www.mudman.org/ or https://www.pottersfield.org/home/.

Reporter Mary Cloud Taylor can be reached at 758-4459 or mtaylor@dailyinterlake.com.