The photo isn’t great, but my memory of that stretch of road is there is a curve after a bridge. If the load came off and the truck was eastbound, that giant pole would have rolled across oncoming traffic. The poor driver coming the other way never stood a chance of avoiding it.
I can’t remember the name of the book now, but in high school we read a ‘true’ story of child abuse. I’m sure it was edited to both tone down and turn up certain elements, but it was pretty much a brutal shock to people who are mostly from decent families that love them. Whether the kids were rich, poor, or middle class in my school, just about everyone there could at least return home to parents that didn’t commit those horrors.
I remember the diapers, the exposure to the elements, and the way the other children were pitted against the abused kid, and honestly? It was the emotional abuse that was the worst to read.