A truck driver in Oregon is alive today thanks to the way he loaded beams of steel onto his truck after a near-crash caused the beams to pierce through his truck's cab.

"If I'd have loaded the load just the opposite, it would have curved to the left and gone out the driver's window. So I mean it was just luck of the way that I loaded it today," driver Jack Phillips told ABC News affiliate KATU-TV in Portland.

Phillips was driving his semi-trailer truck Wednesday afternoon in Tualatin, Ore., when a dump truck cut in front of him, authorities said.

Phillips slammed on the brakes, causing the 30,000 pounds of steel beams loaded on the truck to become loose. At least one beam pierced through the truck's cab, where Phillips was sitting in the driver's seat, and went right through the cab's windshield.

"One of the I-beams, steel beams, came right past my head and through the dash and right out the windshield," Phillips told KATU. "Yeah, yeah, so I was very lucky. That's putting it lightly."

Phillips says he survived by simply ducking his head.

"I didn't know what else to do other than duck my head and hope for the best," he said.

The driver of the dump truck that pulled in front of Phillips' vehicle received a ticket from police, KATU reported

Phillips told KATU he feels so lucky after surviving the near-fatal accident that he was planning on buying lottery tickets.

"I'm going to, yes," he said. "And the police officers all want me to buy them lottery tickets as well."