UPDATE: Driver of minivan dragged behind semi for 16 miles: 'It felt like an eternity' 
 
 ROSCOMMON COUNTY, MI -- A minivan with four occupants was dragged 16 miles by a semi truck early Wednesday after the driver rear-ended the rig, then called 911 while still moving down the road, police say. 
 
 Roscommon sheriff's deputies were dispatched at 1:57 a.m. Jan. 7 after dispatchers received an emergency call from the minivan driver who had reportedly rear-ended a semi truck on I-75 due to poor visibility from heavily falling snow. 
 
 The caller's minivan became lodged under the semi trailer and was being pulled down I-75, unbeknownst to the truck driver, police say. 
 
 Occupants of the mini-van could not see due to snow and were unable to tell dispatchers exactly where they were. 
 
 Both Roscommon and Crawford County sheriff's deputies began a search for the two vehicles and Crawford deputies came upon the large rig south of Grayling on northbound I-75. 
 
 Deputies alerted the semi driver to stop and the driver did so without incident. Authorities soon determined the original crash had occurred 16 miles back. 
 
 Four people inside the mini-van were taken to Grayling Mercy Hospital for evaluation, but they did not appear to have any serious injuries, police said. 
 
 The Grayling area is under an advisory for significant winter weather Wednesday as temperatures were at 1 degree, with blowing snow and lake effect snowfall expected. ||||| 
 
 
 
 ROSCOMMON COUNTY, Mich. (WOOD) – A minivan was dragged for 16 miles on a Northern Michigan highway after it rear-ended a semi-truck and became stuck, according to a release from the Roscommon County Sheriff’s Office. 
 
 Visibility was low just before 2 a.m. Wednesday when the minivan hit the rear of a semi-truck trailer in the northbound lanes of I-75 south of Roscommon, which is about 70 miles north of Mount Pleasant, the release said. The driver of the minivan, Matt Menz, said he never saw the trailer turn on flashing lights to warn of slow speeds before the crash. 
 
 The truck driver couldn’t see the minivan, carrying a family of four, tucked under the rear right end of the trailer, so he kept driving. 
 
 Menz told 24 Hour News 8 in a phone interview that he initially tried to free the minivan when the semi was going slowly, but as road conditions improved and it sped up, he didn’t want to become dislodged because he was afraid the minivan would roll. 
 
 He told his wife to call 911. 
 
 “We ran into the back of a semi-truck and he’s not stopping and our car is embedded underneath of it,” Pamela Menz told a Roscommon County 911 dispatcher. 
 
 The minivan’s horn was broken when it hit the semi, she said, so they couldn’t use it to alert the truck driver they were caught. They initially weren’t able to tell dispatchers where they were on the highway because the snow made it too difficult to see. 
 
 “We can’t see. Everything frozen up because our heater’s gone,” Pamela Menz said. 
 
 Matt Menz said he tried to stay focused on talking to the dispatcher. 
 
 “If you allow yourself to panic, you’re kind of just useless,” he told 24 Hour News 8. “There was time for that after we got stopped.” 
 
 Eventually, they were able to see that the semi was signalling that he was going to get off at the first Roscommon exit. 
 
 “We’re gonna go where he goes,” Matt Menz told the dispatcher. “We have no choice.” 
 
 The semi-truck driver, still unaware the minivan was dragging behind the trailer, kept driving north into Crawford County. 
 
 “I just want to get off the back of this thing,” Pamela Menz told a dispatcher. 
 
 In all, the minivan was towed along for 16 miles and 25 harrowing minutes. Sheriff’s deputies were finally able to locate and stop the vehicles south of Grayling, the release said. 
 
 While no one was seriously injured in the crash, the minivan’s occupants were taken to a local hospital to get checked out. 
 
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 ||||| UPDATE: Listen to 911 call of family inside minivan dragged 16 miles under moving semi 
 
 ROSCOMMON, MI -- Hours after returning home from the hospital, after the adrenaline had worn off and reality had set in, Matthew Menz could hardly believe his family was dragged in their minivan for 16 miles behind a semi truck Wednesday morning. 
 
 And he began to comprehend that they survived the harrowing scenario. 
 
 Matthew Menz, his wife of 26 years, Pamela Menz, and their 26-year-old son and 22-year-old daughter escaped the frightening ordeal with only some soreness and bumps and bruises. 
 
 "I didn't allow my brain to go down that pathway where I would panic," Matthew Menz said, explaining how he focused only on the task at hand early Wednesday. "It felt like an eternity." 
 
 The Menz family had spent several weeks in Tampa while visiting family for Christmas and flew in to Flint's Bishop International Airport late Tuesday night. They then got into their minian for a two-hour drive north to their home in Roscommon. 
 
 By Matthew Menz's estimates, the family was only about 10 minutes from their house when they encountered a snow squall on northbound I-75 about 1:50 a.m. Jan. 7. Suddenly, a semi truck appeared ahead. It was barely moving, Matthew Menz said. 
 
 He braked but could not stop in time to avoid rear-ending the trailer. It had no hazard lights on to help with visibility, said Menz. 
 
 He swerved right at the last minute, but the left side of his Toyota Sienna's front hood lodged under the semi trailer. And the truck was still moving, pulling the mini-van along. 
 
 Pamela Menz called 911 and explained to a dispatcher what was happening as her husband moved the wheel to the left and right, trying to direct it away from the trailer. It was no use, he later said. 
 
 Matthew Menz and his wife stayed calm as they talked dispatchers through the situation and waited for sheriff's deputies to arrive. Matthew Menz, a truck driver for more than 20 years, could hardly believe the driver of this truck did not see him. 
 
 He wonders now what the driver was thinking, barely moving in white-out conditions on the highway without hazard lights. If the driver felt he could not drive, he should have pulled over, gotten off the road. 
 
 "Our responsibility (as truck drivers) is safety to the public and communication," Matthew Menz said. 
 
 Police did not allow him to speak with the driver so he does not know what that person was thinking at the time. 
 
 After a 23-minute conversation with dispatchers, police located the semi and pulled the driver over in Crawford County, near Grayling. Matthew Menz was told to stay in his seat for a few minutes to allow the adrenaline to wear down. 
 
 He later noticed his tires were worn down to the metal and his van covered all around in what he estimates to be three or four inches of snow. 
 
 "It just looked like a great big snowball from all the blowoff," Matthew Menz said. "It could have been dramatically worse ... somebody was watching out for us." 
 
 The family returned home hours later after being seen at a Grayling hospital. ||||| ROSCOMMON CO. -- Four people inside of a mini-van went for scary ride early Wednesday morning. 
 
 According to the Roscommon Sheriff’s County Office, due to poor visibility from the snow, a mini-van rear-ended a semi-truck pulling a large trailer. Inside the mini-van was the Menz family: 46-year old Matt, 47-year-old Pamela, 26-year-old Justin, and 22-year-old Jennifer. 
 
 The Menz family was driving northbound on I-75 from the Flint airport early Wedensday morning and was almost to their home in Roscommon. 
 
 The incident happened just before 2 a.m. 
 
 The driver of the semi-truck was not aware that the mini-van was stuck under the trailer and continued to drive for 16 miles. 
 
 "He apparently didn't know that we were there and before we knew it, he ended up dragging us 16 miles," Matt Menz said. "I was on the phone with 9-1-1 for the whole time. It's a hopeless feeling, helpless feeling. Out of control, you're just along for the ride. " 
 
 Matt Menz's oldest son, Justin, has pervasive development disorder. Matt said over the call to dispatch that Justin flew forward from the back seat to the seat Jennifer was sitting in, in front of Justin. Jennifer tried to console Justin the whole time. 
 
 "Started to console him, take care of him, and tell him it was okay," Jennifer Menz said. "I just started to call him down. When the airbags went off, just that smell like we were going to catch on fire and I thought we were." 
 
 Crawford County Deputies were also called in to help and were able to find the truck just south of Grayling. 
 
 "It is a strange situation," Roscommon County Sheriff Randy Stevenson said. "It's one that we've not heard of before. We've had vehicles rear-ended before but not attached. I feel that it was important that these people were able to get ahold of our dispatch center and we were able to get this semi stopped before, at some point, it did detach from the semi--who knows where the van would've ended up at that point. So, this turned out to be very fortunate for everybody." 
 
 Deputies were able to stop the semi safely. 
 
 The Menz family was taken to Grayling Mercy Hospital for evaluation and came out with minor injuries. 
 
 Sheriff Stevenson recommends driving slower in poor road conditions. He also said there was no other way, in this situation, for the Menz family to detach themselves from the semi other than to call and have Roscommon County Dispatch intercept it and get the truck stopped.
– Bad is when you rear-end a tractor-trailer at 2 in the morning during a snowstorm on the interstate. Worse is when the driver of the big rig, unaware of the collision, doesn't stop. Downright terrifying is when you realize your car got lodged into the back of the truck and is being helplessly dragged along for miles. That's what happened on I-75 in Michigan's Roscommon County in the wee hours of Wednesday, reports ABC News. One of the minivan occupants called for help in a panic: “We ran into the back of a semi-truck and he’s not stopping, and our car is embedded underneath of it. Our windshields have completely shattered. I can’t see nothing.” The minivan's horn was broken, WOOD-TV reports, so the family couldn't attempt to alert the truck driver that way. Deputies finally tracked the tractor-trailer down—16 miles from where the accident took place—and got it to stop, reports MLive. The four occupants of the minivan—Matt Menz, 46, wife Pamela, 47, son Justin, 26, and daughter Jennifer, 22, UpNorthLive reports—were taken to a local hospital for evaluation, but none had serious injuries. They had been on their way from the Flint airport to their home after visiting family in Tampa for the holidays, and were just 10 minutes away at the time, MLive reports. Their 911 call lasted 23 minutes, but, says Matt, who was driving, "It felt like an eternity." (This family survived what may have been an even crazier wreck with an oil tanker.)