This is from Land Line magazine. Please take a look, keep an eye out for this driver and pass it along to others you know are traveling the roads. There is a phone number at the end of the article if you have any information on Mr Eischens.
SPECIAL REPORT: Former Arrow driver now officially ‘missing’
Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010 – A missing persons report was filed last night by the family of John M. Eischens Jr. of Mabank, TX, a former Arrow driver.
The family reportedly has not heard from the trucker since before Christmas, when the Tulsa-based motor carrier suddenly shut down operations and stranded nearly a thousand drivers on the road.
As volunteers were trying to locate those drivers and get them home or to a safe place, the driver of truck number 6325 emerged “unaccounted for.” After two weeks, he remains missing.
According to Iowa driver Eric Mende, a volunteer working to help stranded drivers, Qualcomm reported no activity on the truck that Eischens was driving for Arrow. Mende said the “last ping was to a tower in the Butte, MT, area.” Mende began calling truck stops in the area and that’s how he found truck number 6325 abandoned at the Pilot in Butte, with keys in it.
Mende told Land Line Magazine that he asked the Pilot security guard to check the lot. The guard found the Arrow truck and reported that the driver’s belongings were gone. The guard told Mende the truck had been there since Dec. 25. There was no sign of Eischens.
Volunteers who have talked to Eischens’ family in Texas report that his mother is worried that he’s not contacted them for several weeks and “it’s not like him to fail to call on Christmas.”
Det. Steve Williams of the Anna Police Department told Land Line that the report was filed last night and going “into the system” Wednesday morning. Williams said because it was a new investigation, details were not available.
If anyone has information on whereabouts of Eischens, please call Det. Williams of the Anna, TX, Police Department. The office phone is 972-924-2848; after 5 p.m. calls will be handled by dispatch at 972-547-5350.
The times are tough for everyone these days. But for many Arrow Truck Lines drivers, it got worse yesterday. All I ask is read the story below and look into your hearts and help how ever you can. Living on workman’s comp right now I can’t afford to help with money, or a ride, but I can offer a place to stay for a few days.
I am sure that many of you have seen the white and green Arrow trucks rolling down the road over the years. Yesterday they closed their doors and left their drivers stranded all over the country. According to “Tulsa World“, the 61-year-old Tulsa-based flatbed company, closed it’s door without any notice to the office staff or the drivers.
After closing down the company phone system Tuesday morning and not accepting cell phone messages throughout the day, the company issued a statement from CEO Doug Pielsticker at 6:21 p.m.
“The company has been in negotiations with its principal lender,” Pielsticker said. “Those negotiations are continuing, but the lender has elected to proceed with securing its collateral. The company is communicating with several interested parties and continues to seek a prompt resolution.”
Beginning just before noon Tuesday, callers to Arrow’s west Tulsa offices were greeted with a recorded message: “Drivers, if you’re in Freightliner KW, please take your truck to the nearest Freightliner shop. Call this hot line number to Daimler, (877) 294-9679. They will arrange for you a bus ticket home.”
“I’m shut down near Cheyenne, Wyo.,” Arrow driver Denny Carter said by phone. “They asked me to bring the truck and load into Tulsa, but I don’t have fuel to do it. I’ll be taking the truck to a Kenworth dealership in Cheyenne.”
“I haven’t heard nothing and haven’t been able to get ahold of anybody,” driver Ruben Bradley said by phone. He shut down his rig at a truck stop in Wichita Falls, Texas, on Monday night when other drivers phoned to tell him their gas credit cards weren’t working.
Bradley was hauling a load of steel pipe for delivery in northern New Mexico. He had three-quarters of a 240-gallon tank of diesel fuel he thought would take him to his delivery but not enough to return the truck to a terminal or Tulsa.
And with no working fuel card, he didn’t have $500 to $600 of his own money to fill the tank.
“I’m not going to move the truck. I’m not going to get stuck way out in New Mexico without fuel and no way to get home,” Bradley said. “I can’t get ahold of anybody, not even extended operations or the fuel desk.”
Doug Evans was in similar straits early Tuesday.
“I’m not in a very good mood,” the Arrow driver said by phone, his fuel gauge at a quarter tank as he motored west toward Little Rock with a load of steel tubing.
“I’m fixing to be out of fuel. I can’t get any answers. I got a message to take the truck to the nearest Freightliner dealer. We haven’t gotten any paychecks, either.”
By Tuesday evening, Bradley was driving south to a Freightliner dealer and a new job he’d just been offered in Houston. He had just enough fuel to make it, he said.
Evans, whose load was bound for Houston, had run out of fuel. He was parked in a truck stop 60 miles east of Little Rock.
“I’m waiting for somebody to send me some money — Western Union so I can get enough fuel to get the truck to the Freightliner dealer in Little Rock,” Evans said. “And then I’m going to have to walk home to Monroe, La. There are seven drivers I know about — from North Carolina to Arizona — who are walking home.”
Carter, who was stranded in Cheyenne, almost 2,000 miles from his home in O’Brien, Fla., was nearly alone among the drivers in that he will have a merry Christmas.
“Friends out here, people I met on the road, pooled together and bought me an airplane ticket home,” he said.
“I’m flying Cheyenne to Gainesville on Wednesday.”
Land Line Mag reported the story yesterday with the following statement:
Stephanie Ortega, who works in the Fleet Services department at Daimler, said she found out when she arrived at work Tuesday morning that Arrow Trucking was shutting its doors and about the company’s plan to help get Arrow’s drivers home.
She was instructed to tell drivers to drop their vehicles off at the nearest Freightliner dealership and to leave their keys with an attendant there or at a truck stop if they are out of fuel.
Ortega said drivers are asked to then call Daimler at 877-294-9679 and she and others there “can get them a bus ticket through Greyhound or the company will reimburse up to $200 for alternative transportation costs.”
However, one drawback to the plan is that drivers are on their own to find transportation to a local Greyhound station once they have surrendered their trucks.
“If they can get themselves to a local Greyhound station, we will get them a bus ticket and get them home,” Ortega told Land Line.
The trucking world is coming together to helps it’s own. There has been a Facebook page created with the sole purpose of helping drivers connect with people that can help. Weather it is with money, a ride home, or just a place to stay till someone can get them home, any help a person can give would be greatly appreciated by the many drivers left standing in the cold.
“CDL of it” also have a list going in their Christmas Group Forum of drivers that need help and people that are willing to help. According to a message felt on the Facebook page, there are 2 lists there, one with drivers needing rides, fuel, help. another with a list of folks that can provide rides, help, etc. you can also call 866-929-9627 or 417-200-4411.
4 State Trucks – The Chrome Shop Mafia also made a statement on their Facebook page:
All of us at CSM certainly feel for these Arrow drivers that may end up stranded. If someone knows of a driver that needs a lift home for the Holidays, please contact us at customerservice@chromeshopmafia.com and we will try our best to hook them up with one of our customers, fans or friends to get them back home. We all agree that the trucking business can be tough, but things like this shouldn’t happen.
