Nader Leali of Logan, Utah, is not only lucky to be alive, if you ask him he will tell you it is downright miraculous.
Like most long-haul truckers, Leali’s life is on the road with miles upon miles of white stripes and blacktop highway between him and his destination. On Monday, September 14, 2026, his routine life was upended when his tractor-trailer rig caught fire some seven miles north of Eldorado on U.S. 277.
Leali was en route to Eagle Pass, Texas with a construction crane when his 2010 Kenworth lost power. He steered the rig onto the shoulder of the road just north of Meador Draw but the truck was already on fire by the time he managed to stop.
Leali says the smoke was boiling from beneath the driver’s side of the cab with flames curling up around the truck’s batteries. Grabbing a fire extinguisher, Leali crawled under the rig in an effort to stop the blaze.
The battery cable had melted and was glowing red, Leali said. Believing an electrical short was feeding the fire, Leali tried to pull the battery cable loose, but the super-heated wiring burned through his gloves, injuring one of his thumbs.
That’s when things went from bad to worse as the fire burned through the truck’s air bag suspension. As the units deflated, the tractor lowered onto Leali’s body, trapping him in place.
“I got stuck,” Leali recalled.
With the fire growing around him, he said he was convinced he wouldn’t escape.
“Everything was quick, a matter of seconds,” he said.
Out of options and with a fire blazing around him, Leali turned his attention elsewhere and prayed for help.
“God, help me out. Get me out of here,” he remembered saying.
“God pulled me out,” he said.
Otherwise, Leali doesn’t know how he could have escaped from under the burning rig.
The flames spread quickly along the highway right-of-way as firefighters, law enforcement officers and emergency medical personnel arrived. By that time, the truck and its cargo burned and melted into a heap on the side of the road.
Leali, covered in soot, was placed in an ambulance where an EMT tended to his burned hand. That’s when Leali says he experienced another moment of divine intervention. Lying on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance, Leali says a small white spider descended from the ceiling on a single strand of silk and stopped at his chest.
Leali says one of the EMTs noticed it and told him, “Your angel is with you right now.” Removing the spider, the EMT told him, “This is your sign.”
The experience was overwhelming, Leali said.
“As soon as I heard that, I got emotional,” Leali said, remembering the moments he spent trapped beneath the burning truck.
Leali was taken to Schleicher County Medical Center where he remained for several hours before being transported to a hotel in Sonora. He returned later to obtain paperwork from the hospital since he lost nearly everything he owned in the fire, including identification and other documents.
Leali stopped by the Eldorado Success office on Sept. 29 to buy a newspaper with the photo of his burned-out truck. He said the newspaper would help confirm his story as he worked to obtain a new ID and other documents. During the visit he shared a remarkable story of terror, survival and an unwavering belief that God had spared his life.
Leali said he had lived in the truck for some 10 years, making the loss more than just the destruction of a vehicle. But, it wasn’t a total loss.
Leali said his Bible survived the fire. The cover was burned and the edges of some pages were scorched, but the Bible – representing the Word of God – remained intact.
For Leali, his fiery escape, the unexpected spider and the survival of the Bible are woven together as distinct parts of a complete story.
“I should’ve been dead,” he said. “But I’m still alive.”
Leali’s West Texas experience didn’t end when he left Schleicher County. Stranded in Sonora and needing to get to Houston to pick up another truck, Leali said he met three men while eating at a Mexican restaurant. Upon hearing his story, the men, employed by HuntCo, told him they were traveling to Houston the next morning and offered him a ride.
“Lots of people came into my path and helped me,” Leali said. “And I thank God. He is still watching over me.”
For those who might doubt some, if not all, of Leali’s story, The Eldorado Success spoke with the EMT who treated him in the ambulance. The spider, it turns out, was very real.
