Woman survives wreck with 18-wheeler

An officer who pulled over a Pike County college student for a tag light violation could have saved her life after he made her put on her seatbelt. Less than an hour after Georgia State Patrol Trooper Mitchell Day issued the warning, the vehicle Caitlin Finley, 20, was driving was totaled by a tractor trailer. The truck hit her from behind at a high rate of speed and flipped the truck over. Caitlin hung upside down by the seatbelt for 10 to 15 minutes with gasoline pouring out of the truck’s gas tank until emergency responders were able to cut the door off the truck. She was transported to the trauma center at Atlanta Medical Center. ’It’s a miracle. She’s pretty beat up but she came through it with no broken bones or anything,’ said her father Jerome Finley of Meansville. ‘We are waiting for all the bruising and swelling goes down to see how she is. The Lord was definitely with her through this.’ She was hit by a tractor trailer on Highway 16 in Griffin. ’She was stopped at a traffic light when the tractor trailer came over the bridge and hit her without even slowing down,’ he said. ‘She drives a Grand Prix and that truck would have probably run right over it but her car was acting up so I made her drive my old truck. The officer pulled her over about a tag light violation and told her to put her seatbelt on. Driving that old truck and wearing the seatbelt saved her life.’ Caitlin is the daughter of Jerome Finley, the city clerk for Meansville and Teresa Finley. She is at home but has a hard time getting up and around.