Have you ever wondered about the hidden dangers truck drivers face on the road? This episode tackles the tragic and perplexing death of David Schultz, a trucker whose life was cut short by hyperthermia after ingesting methamphetamine. Uncover the haunting timeline from his disappearance in November 2023 to the grim discovery of his body months later. We emphasize the critical importance of truckers watching out for one another and reflect on the profound loss felt by Schultz's family and the entire trucking community. Through another case involving Brian Lush, we underscore the necessity for vigilance and mutual support in this tight-knit industry.
We also address pressing safety concerns in the transportation sector, focusing particularly on the risks associated with marijuana use and current drug testing protocols. Hear about the American Trucking Association's (ATA) firm stance on maintaining robust drug testing, especially in safety-sensitive positions such as commercial trucking, busing, airlines, and rail. Stay informed about the latest updates, including the opening of Love's Travel Stop on I-44 in Sarcoxie, Missouri, which provides essential parking for truck drivers. Our message is clear: the responsibility of staying sober and vigilant is crucial to ensuring the safety of everyone on the road. Join us for a deeply impactful conversation that highlights the weighty responsibilities truck drivers carry and the collective effort needed to support each other.
Have you ever wondered about the hidden dangers truck drivers face on the road? This episode tackles the tragic and perplexing death of David Schultz, a trucker whose life was cut short by hyperthermia after ingesting methamphetamine. Uncover the haunting timeline from his disappearance in November 2023 to the grim discovery of his body months later. We emphasize the critical importance of truckers watching out for one another and reflect on the profound loss felt by Schultz's family and the entire trucking community. Through another case involving Brian Lush, we underscore the necessity for vigilance and mutual support in this tight-knit industry.
We also address pressing safety concerns in the transportation sector, focusing particularly on the risks associated with marijuana use and current drug testing protocols. Hear about the American Trucking Association's (ATA) firm stance on maintaining robust drug testing, especially in safety-sensitive positions such as commercial trucking, busing, airlines, and rail. Stay informed about the latest updates, including the opening of Love's Travel Stop on I-44 in Sarcoxie, Missouri, which provides essential parking for truck drivers. Our message is clear: the responsibility of staying sober and vigilant is crucial to ensuring the safety of everyone on the road. Join us for a deeply impactful conversation that highlights the weighty responsibilities truck drivers carry and the collective effort needed to support each other.
Text me anytime with news, suggestions, and stories at (641) 990-5641. God bless, be safe, and keep it between the lines drivers.
Speaker 1:
record one nine. Hello drivers. Welcome to rolling 18 podcast. I appreciate you guys listening to and or downloading my podcast. You can visit all the links that I have down below the description in this podcast at buzzsproutcom. Just look up Rollin' 18 Podcast. You can even Google it. You will find me everywhere. You can find me on Twitter, instagram, facebook. I have my own website at mediaiowacom or you can go to roll Roland18Podcastcom. That'll take you right to the Buzzsprout account. I'm also putting video depictions of me driving down the road while I'm telling you about my podcast. So if you like, if you prefer a video, you can just watch me drive down the road in a truck. Anyway, I got some more somber news for you guys.
Speaker 1:
If you guys remember, on May 29th I did a story about a gentleman that went missing, david Schultz. They found his cattle trailer and his semi parked on the shoulder and they had no signs of him. They spent months looking for him. They used drones, they used everything Come to find out he was a mile and a half away from the truck. The blog post I put out stated the open road often presents itself not only as a path of travel, but also as a route to deeper, sometimes troubling, mysteries On that episode. I talked about how it was a perfect example of this duality, featuring a dive into the unsolved demise of trucker David Schultz as an exploration into the complex future of emissions in the trucking industry. Well, the results of his autopsy many months later finally came out, and Schultz died of hyperthermia after ingesting meth. Now, if you look at the death certificate, it basically describes truck driver David Schultz's cause of death something that was not expected at all of death, something that was not expected at all.
Speaker 1:
Schultz disappeared late November in 2023, after abandoning his truck loaded with hogs on the side of the rural road on his regular route. He was found on April 24th just off the road in some corn, only a quarter of a mile from his commercial vehicle. They they said I think it was close enough to the road that searchers thought well, we don't need to look here because we could definitely see him. So obviously it was a lot closer than even what I reported back in may. Initial autopsies led officials to state there was no sign of foul play and schultz's death was not a homicide, but his family and friends felt uncomfortable with that ruling and were planning to get a second opinion, sparking controversy and theories surrounding Schultz's death. As of the evening of June 20th, schultz's death certificate has been released, stating his cause of death as hyperthermia in the setting of acute drug methamphetamine intoxication. The document goes on to state ingested drug and exposed to environmental cold and lists the death as an accident. Now the temperature on November 20th 2023, the night Schultz disappeared dropped to 30 degrees, then 35 degrees the next day, then as low as 11 degrees in the next week, and the case is officially considered closed.
Speaker 1:
I don't know what to say. You know, it's one of those things where maybe he ingested methamphetamines and then got spooked by the way he was feeling and decided to walk it off, get out in the breast cold. Maybe he developed an acute sweating thought, maybe he was having a medical emergency. I'm not sure what goes through a person's mind when they get scared like that, but doing drugs on the road out by yourself is never good. If you're gonna do drugs and I suggest you don't ever do drugs make sure you're with other people, because there are times people have overdosed or taken a drug they didn't know anything about and somebody had tainted it with fentanyl or something else, and people were able to get them help, but the best prevention is to not do drugs at all. He was hauling cattle or he was hauling pigs one of the two and generally they have to get there pretty quickly. He may have been beyond tired, decided to try it and maybe he's done it a hundred times and never had a problem. I don't know. Well, obviously this time was very fatal for him and that is extremely sad for him and his family and his children, and we're going to miss him.
Speaker 1:
You know we reported on Brian Lush up in Canada and that was a weird case as well, because he went into the truck stop and disappeared and all of a sudden everybody's confused when is he? Where did he go? His daughter started getting on Facebook and social media sites begging for help, passing out pictures Where's my dad? I want my daddy and come to find out. They towed the truck back to a shop or something like that, ended up finding his body in the trailer of that truck. That's amazing that nobody looked in that trailer. I'm assuming he was covered up with stuff and whatever. Maybe he got under the blankets, maybe he got confused.
Speaker 1:
I don't know what goes on and nobody is ever going to really know the true story, except for Mr Lush, and unfortunately he's no longer with us. It's a sad day when we lose truck drivers and that's why I always say we always need to watch out for each other and if you see anything that's weird, call somebody, let somebody know, reach out to help somebody. We're all out there alone and the best thing we can do is work together, and I've always said that. Now we are definitely praying for David Schultz's family and we want them to know that we care. And you can reach out to us anytime you want and talk to me. My number's on my website at mediaiowacom. Reach out to me. If you need just somebody to listen, it doesn't matter, I'm there. I want you to know I'm there. As drivers, we are all brothers and sisters out there and I think generally need people to care and that's important to all of us. So please, mrs Schultz, if you need me, give me a call. I will listen and if you have any other questions, you need some investigative work done. I can do that too, because I run under Media Iowa Journalism, so I do have a license for journalism. I can go out there and do investigations. Let me know if you have any final questions or if there's anything I can do for you. But in the meantime I'm going to pray for you and the children and his other family parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. I'm going to pray for all of you folks that were left behind. God bless all of you.
Speaker 1:
Now another important story has popped up here lately. On June 21st there was a news break about ATA asking DOT about its position on possible reclassification of marijuana. I don't know where this is going to go. Ladies and gentlemen, me personally, if you want to smoke pot, that's fine. I don't want it mixed with commercial vehicles. I really don't. I don't want it mixed with four-wheelers. To be honest with you, I want the same lengthy time for you to sit on your butt at home until you're completely cleared of that drug before you operate a vehicle. Go ride a bicycle. That way, if you make a mistake, at least you're the one that gets damaged and not a bunch of other people, and I don't even want to see that happen.
Speaker 1:
But the American Trucking Association, Thursday June 20th, sent a letter to the Transportation Secretary, pete Buttigieg, as part of the organization's opposition to the US Department of Justice's proposal to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 drug. The association said in its letter this policy shift could have what it called significant negative consequences for highway safety, endangering all who share the road. Ata said it is asking Buttigieg to share whether the Department of Transportation will maintain the authority and means to conduct testing of marijuana use by commercial motor vehicle drivers and other safety-sensitive transportation workers. I know you guys have a lot of opinion out there and you guys, diehard pot smokers, will even tell you marijuana has no place in a commercial vehicle. Marijuana has no place in a four-wheeler. None of that, because you know it's a mind-altering drug and I don't care what you guys say, I don't care how hard you fight. Look, they're going to legalize it all across the United States. Isn't that good enough? Or do you want to go to where everybody's high while they're driving down the road? Let's be reasonable about this. Let's make wise decisions Now. It goes on to say without this guarantee, industries that must screen workers performing safety-sensitive roles would operate under a cloud of uncertainty.
Speaker 1:
According to the ATA, if the trucking and broader transportation industry's ability to conduct drug testing for marijuana is restricted, the ATA heightened risk of impaired drivers threatens the nation's highways. I agree 100%. The absence of reliable standard for marijuana impairment in alignment with blood alcohol content measures for alcohol impairment makes it all the more vital for motor carriers to have visibility into marijuana usage. According to the ATA, it is critical for transportation safety that we maintain the scope and scrutiny of testing that currently exists for individuals engaged in safety sensitive industries, including commercial trucking, busing, airlines and rail. Now they wrote the American Trucking Association Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Safety Policy and they stated while ATA does not maintain a formal position on marijuana legalization or the ongoing testing of non-safety sensitive employees under HHS federal workplace drug testing programs, we remain concerned about the broad public health and safety consequences of the reclassification on the national highway system and its users. Now, though, ata understands that the process and content of DOJ's rulemaking falls outside the purview of DOT, we believe DOT and ATA share the goals of achieving zero highway fatalities and ensuring the commercial driving workforce is qualified to safely operate on our nation's highways.
Speaker 1:
Now how hard can that be, ladies and gentlemen? How hard can it be to understand that everybody should make it home alive? You know, the sad part is the vast majority of accidents out there are caused because people are in a hurry and they're mad or they're upset about something that happened at work, or maybe somebody did something on the road and they make a stupid decision. They go home in a body bag. That is not what we want and I'm pretty sure if they knew they were going to die within a few moments, they would have made a different decision.
Speaker 1:
If you guys want to comment about this, do so on my platform. Let me know what you think, call me, text me, send me an email, put it on a comment on my Facebook page, roland18podcast. Let me know what you think and I understand there's going to be a million different views, but the bottom line is is dead okay? Is killing somebody okay? Is killing yourself okay? Over getting high for a short period of time? I would think not and I would hope that 80, 90% of you folks agree with me. Drivers, we got to be responsible, and if they reclassify this to a schedule three and then they change the rules on drug testing out in the road, we're not going to know who's high until we're pinned in the cab of our truck, getting rescued by the fire department with a 50-50 chance to live. Is that how we really want it done? I know we took a lot of chances in the 70s, 80s and 90s out there on the road. But DOT is doing their utmost diligence to make sure that we have zero people out there driving while they're high, and that is extremely important.
Speaker 1:
You don't like it when people cut you off. You don't like it when you can't find a parking spot to get sleep. You don't like it when things aren't safe at a shipper or receivers. Why would you like it if somebody just smoked a joint and went down the road? Oh, it's not that big of a deal. Pot really doesn't get you that high. You have no clue, driver, if you say that and believe me, you don't even believe that yourself. I understand people want to use pot. That's fine and dandy with me. Make sure every bit of it is out of your system before you get behind the wheel of anything.
Speaker 1:
Now, if you guys travel the I-44 location, there's a new Love's Travel Stop that opened at sarcoxy, missouri, about 23 miles east of joplin. It's located along interstate 44 and the location is open 24 7 and offers numerous amenities. Of course I'm not going to go into all that stuff we already know. Says here in honor of the grand opening, loves will split a five thousand dollar note donation between the Sarcoxie Public Library and the Sarcoxie Police Department. So if you want to check it out, it is on I-44, and I believe it's supposed to have 89 truck parking spots. So that's good. We'll take as many more new parking spots as we can get.
Speaker 1:
It does seem to cater quite a bit to the four-wheeler because if I'm looking at the design right here and the four-wheeler gets a front entrance with all these different things in here and the truck entrance is going to be coming out along with the car entrance. So there's going to be some problems there. And of course you have to go all the way to the back of the truck truck stop to get in with a semi, but you also have to, you know, and there's probably going to be people parking on the shoulder at night because 89 trucks may not be enough. It's going to be a gamble. We'll see how it works out and I'll definitely check with the truck stop in a few months to see how the parking situation is going. But at least it's another truck stop with more parking and that's important. I appreciate you folks listening. I'm Walter Gatlin with Rollin' 18 Podcast. God bless, be safe and, as always, keep it between the lines driver. Thank you.