Loose pipe punctures SUV windshield on I-40

"It was traumatizing," said a driver who was unharmed Tuesday morning when a large metal pipe bounced off a truck and into his windshield.

The man and a woman were driving from Raleigh on Interstate 40 to their jobs in Selma just before 9:30 a.m.

"It flew off a tanker truck and it was bouncing in the street, and just when we approached it, the pipe, it flew up and hit the windshield. Glass went everywhere, in my face and eyes, possibly down my throat," the man said.

"I thought someone was shooting at us," the woman said.

Both said the pipe fell off of a truck with a label that identified it as belonging to Harnett Trading Company in Dunn. The truck did not stop, and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol is treating the incident as a hit and run.

Neither the driver nor his female passenger were seriously injured, but both were shaken up.