There are pretty much only a few options for where you can sleep at night while on the road if you're really tired or nowadays over your daily driving limit. You can just pull over on the side of the road if there's room. If you're lucky, you'll find a truck stop with enough open spaces for you to park and catch a few hours of sleep. Then there's my least favorite: parking in the back of a public lawn and sleeping. The most common places you'll find truckers doing this are at big stores like Walmart. But just because it's common doesn't always mean it's safe.
That being said, one of my worst nights on the road was when I happened to be picking up a large shipment from a department store in the same plaza as a Walmart. It wasn't out-of-state delivery that brought me near Eagle Pass, Texas, right on the border between Texas and Mexico. And because the pickup was so early in the morning, I decided to sleep in the back of the parking lot.
The only upside to this was that I got to go inside and grab some food to eat. That being said, as soon as I walked out of the store, I started to regret my decision.
I was walking toward my truck, and to my surprise, I noticed two guys walking out from behind the passenger side as if they were trying to do something to my truck. I asked them if I could help them with anything and why they were standing so close to the truck when they have a whole parking lot to be in. They didn't give me a straight answer. They basically just snickered and walked past me as if I wasn't even there.
I decided to just brush it off and not get into any sort of conflict, so I just got back in my truck and began eating my food as I watched a show on my phone. About an hour passed, and by that point, the sun had finally set, and I was getting pretty tired from being on the road all day, so I got ready to lay down. I made sure both the doors were locked and then I pulled the curtain ceiling off the cab in the driving compartment before laying down and going to sleep.
After sleeping for a few hours, I woke up to a loud noise that sounded like it was coming from the back of my truck. I sat up and got ready to check it out when, out of nowhere, I heard the sound of glass shattering. I looked up to my feet as the passenger side door of the truck unlocked, and one of the guys I saw earlier that night rushed into the truck. I put my hands up to cover my face as I saw something swinging toward me. The impact of what I noticed later was a metal bar, most likely the crowbar from the back of my truck, sent a shock through my entire upper body as it cracked into my arms.
I fell backward but was quickly grabbed and pulled out of the truck before being thrown onto the cold parking lot. I looked up, but my eyes took a second to adjust to the street lights, and by the time I was able to see, the two people were standing over top me. I felt the metal bar slammed down on me. I curled over and began laying in the fetal position as the two guys continued to hit me. And when they were finally finished, I could feel them rummaging through my pockets. I rolled to my side to try to keep them from getting my keys, but as soon as they saw I was conscious, they began striking me again, this time until I blacked out.
I don't know how long I was unconscious, but when I finally woke up, I could tell that I wasn't on the gravel anymore. I couldn't see anything around me, but as I felt around with my hands, I realized that I was in the back of my truck with the shipment.
I took a second to take everything in, and I realized how hard it was for me to breathe. With each breath I took, it felt like I was being stabbed in the lungs. Before I could bring myself to sit all the way up, I felt a bit of shaking, which told me that the two guys had stolen my truck with me in the back of it.
I tried my best not to move at first because of the pain that I was feeling from almost every side of my body. But as I felt the truck slowly come to a stop, I knew that I needed to get ready for anything.
I didn't know where we were or what these guys wanted. I slowly sat myself up and then managed to bring myself onto my knees. I slowly crawled toward the back of the truck, toward the door. I didn't really have a plan; I just knew that once they opened the door, I needed to get as far away from them as possible by any means necessary.
The moments passed, and there was no movement from the front of the truck or the truck itself since we stayed parked. But after what felt like an hour, I finally heard the sound of both the driver and the passenger side door opening and closing.
I prepared myself as I heard the latch at the bottom of the door unlocking as it slid open, though I was unable to move as I was blinded by two flashlights pointed right at me.
That was when I heard something I didn't expect. It turned out the two guys who mugged me and stole my truck were driving so poorly that they got themselves pulled over.
I was now staring at two uniformed officers who promised me that an ambulance was on the way and that I was going to be just fine.
When all was said and done, I was told that the two men had connections to a group in Mexico, and they believed that the men were attempting to cross the border with the shipment to sell the truck and the products we were shipping. There's no telling what would have happened to me if the truck had successfully made it across the border, but something tells me that I wouldn't be alive right now.