Toyota Honors Texas Hero With New Car, and His Story Pulls at the Heartstrings

We’ve talked about Trey McDaniel before. He is a MedStar paramedic who achieved unlikely “fame” after he was involved in the Fort Worth, Texas pileup that occurred on the morning of February 11, 2021. Taking place on Interstate 35 outside Fort Worth,TX, it involved 133 vehicles and resulted in six fatalities and dozens of injuries.

McDaniel started the day as any other: he was on his way to work, in his trusted 2011 Toyota FJ Cruiser. As he explains in a video released earlier this week by Toyota, he had heard the weather forecast warning but, for him, staying home was out of the question.

There was nothing uncommon about his early commute – until he saw a mass accident up ahead. “By that time, it was already too late,” McDaniel says. He had hit black ice and, with the brakes applied, skid into the pile of vehicles crashed on the highway. There was nothing he could do right now but wait to see if any other vehicle came crashing into him. “Like a sitting duck,” he recalls.

An 18-wheeler came next, sparks flying as the driver tried to have the concrete barrier take the brunt of the impact. Trapped inside his own vehicle, McDaniel was bracing for the worst. And he got just that: his FJ Cruiser was sent flying and rolling into the air, landing in the opposite lane after going over the barrier. Inside, McDaniel had survived and had only minor injuries.

This is where his story gets even more incredible: he crawled out of the wreck and, after checking himself to see if he was ok, he rushed to help other victims who were way worse than himself. He helped first-responders for quite some time because, since he was wearing his scrubs, they had no idea he’d been involved in the crash himself.

“Everywhere I looked, I just saw more cars, and more people who needed help,” he says. “I heard people screaming to be rescued, which I’ll never forget. My adrenaline was pumping, and I just felt, as a paramedic, I had to do something. I’ve seen bad crashes before. But this was on a totally different level.”

As his story went public, Toyota reached out to him on a reddit thread and promised him a new vehicle. McDaniel received that new car at the end of last month, with the company sharing the news just now.

Toyota gave McDaniel a brand new 2021 4Runner TRD Pro in Lunar Rock, with Toyota Motor North America President and CEO Tetsuo Ogawa reaching out to the hero to let him know that his story had pulled at the heartstrings. Toyota has given away cars before, but never before had it felt like a more appropriate thing to do.

“Despite having freezing temperatures, when I first heard about your heroic action, my heart warmed up,” Ogawa told him, as revealed in a press release. “Your story melted all our hearts at Toyota. Our company has a long-standing core value of respect and care for people. On behalf of all of us at Toyota, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are a true hero.”

Sure, you will probably say after reading this, this is excellent PR for Toyota. Their now-discontinued FJ Cruiser is getting people talking about the safety of Toyota vehicles, and they’re using the opportunity to shine the spotlight on the 4Runner. You’re right, most likely.

But this is also a story about a regular person (if you could ever describe a medical professional as “regular”) who, in the most extraordinary circumstances, acted in the most extraordinary matter. A true hero by all means – and one who survived because his car protected him when he needed it the most.

Here is McDaniel telling his story in his own words.