Wife's persistent phone calls save trapped trucker

Some may call consistent calls from their wife hen pecking. Tim Rutledge calls them a lifesaver.

The driver crawled under his truck to remove ice from the brake pads.

When the truck shifted in the snow, it trapped Rutledge with his arms pinned to his side, for eight hours.

He said there were other trucks nearby "about 10 feet from me,” but with engines running they couldn’t hear him yelling for help.

Tim’s cell phone was in his pocket but he couldn’t get his arms free to reach it.

His wife became concerned when she didn’t hear from him at his nomal time. So she began calling his cell phone.

When he didn't answer she became even more persistent, dialing him over and over.

Eventually the vibrating of the phone dislodged it from Rutledge’s pocket and it fell in front of him.

"If it would have gone behind me, I wouldn't be talking to you today, "I would have frozen to death," he told the Orlando Sentinal.

Tim was able to use the voice command to make a call for help.

The temperature was as cold as 10 below zero leading doctors to say Tim wouldn’t have survived another hour.

The conditions were so poor Rutledge had to be cut out of his clothes because they were frozen solid.

After spending two days in the hospital Tim is still suffering where the trucks axle was pressing on him.

But doctors say he escaped having frostbite because the truck also shielded him from the worst of the wind

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