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When one pictures a dangerous highway in their mind, images of a dark, poorly lit road  or a narrow, sharp curve along a mountain side come to mind. But is was a newly-surfaced stretch of straight, flat highway, the scene of several previous automobile accidents, that claimed the life of a Brownsboro resident on Monday, February 15th.

22-year old Michael Harville, a volunteer firefighter was killed when he lost control of the pickup truck he was driving on a dangerous stretch of highway and crashed into a Highway 72 storefront.

According to eyewitness Barbara Thomas “A pickup truck had apparently run off the slope (no shoulder) and gone into this building. ” Business owners said that they have seen many other accidents at this site. “The fire department got here and got him out, established a pulse, and they transported him to Huntsville hospital.” Michael died soon after arriving.

Michael was on his way to visit a friend, Steve Woods, who said “I waited about 40 minutes (after Michael didn’t answer his cell phone) and I got worried, it’s not like Michael to like not show up because he always does.” After he got the news, Woods said “we’re going to miss him. I hope his family knows he was a good kid.”

Thomas was featured in a news piece a year ago where she was adamant that the state needed to put up a guard rail and emphatically stated that someone was going to get killed if the state didn’t do something to remedy the dangerous situation. “The state needs to put up a guard rail” she said.

When one examines the stretch of highway in question, one can plainly see that there is no shoulder area and that all that keeps a vehicle from careening down a 6-foot drop is about one foot and a strip of white paint. It’s apparent that Michael did just that.  (source:
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/02/volunteer_firefighter_killed_i.html )