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Dave Munson had always been a stickler for time. Born and raised in Portsmouth, Ohio, he ran a small HVAC repair business and was known in town for always arriving five minutes early, no matter the job. It wasn’t something he bragged about—it was just how he was raised. “Early is on time, on time is late,” his father used to say.
One Tuesday morning in early April, Dave was scheduled to check on a client’s furnace over in Wheelersburg. The job wasn’t urgent, but he liked to keep a tight schedule. He set out at 7:55 AM sharp, even though the appointment wasn’t until 8:30. He figured he’d grab a coffee and maybe catch up on a few calls from the truck.
As he passed over the U.S. 52 overpass at about 8:05 AM, he noticed a few small cracks in the concrete barrier but didn’t think much of it. That old bridge had been there since his dad’s day, and it had always groaned under heavy trucks.
By 8:10, he was parked in the driveway of the client’s house, sipping coffee and waiting. Ten minutes later, his phone buzzed—his buddy Rick, a sheriff’s deputy, was calling.
“You just cross the 52 bridge?”
“Yeah, about fifteen minutes ago. Why?”
“It just collapsed. Tractor trailer went down with it. Traffic’s backed up for miles. You okay?”
Dave froze. The bridge—the bridge he had just driven over—was gone.
He turned on the radio, and sure enough, the news confirmed it: the eastbound side had crumbled under a heavy load, sending a semi and two cars into the river below. Emergency crews were still working.
Later that night, while watching the evening news with his wife Jean, Dave couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened if he’d left ten minutes later. That could’ve been him in the water.
He didn’t sleep much that night. The next morning, he quietly added “time saved is life saved” to the little note pinned above his garage workbench.
He never spoke much about that day, except to Jean. But every time someone poked fun at how early he arrived, he just smiled and said, “I’d rather be waiting in a driveway than underwater.”
