Charlie Carter was nearly finished with his regular FedEx route when his truck’s engine and brakes quit, resulting in a scary backward roll down Klein Street.

Carter was making a left turn from Oak onto Klein and was about to deliver packages to The Corners Bed and Breakfast, 601 Klein, about 3:12 p.m. Wednesday.

The FedEx Ground truck rolled down the steep hill toward the railroad tracks along Pearl. Carter was at the wheel with his seat belt on and the driver’s-side door open – but said he didn’t think about jumping out because the truck was moving too fast.

&#8220I was thinking that was the end,” Carter said.

Near the bottom of the hill, the truck struck a utility pole, stopping it just before crossing Pearl and the tracks. The truck snapped out a middle part of the pole, with the broken top part falling through the truck’s fiberglass roof and coming to rest straight down slightly behind Carter and to his right, less than 5 feet from the driver’s seat, with its bottom about 2 feet from the truck’s floor.

During its roll, Carter’s truck passed Belle of the Bends where Mary Lee, co-owner, said she was at her computer when she heard a booming noise and saw a &#8220big fireball” flash as the transformer on a pole directly across from the house blew out.

&#8220I thought somebody had hit the house,” Lee said of the impact.

Carter, however, was not injured.

&#8220When it stopped, I got out,” he said.

Carter said his truck must be running for its brakes to work and that one of the things he did during the roll was try to re-crank the engine.

&#8220Each time I tried it wouldn’t start,” Carter said. &#8220It would make a noise. I kept trying to put it in any gear. I forced it into second. I tried to get it into reverse.”

Carter said the truck has an emergency brake but that it’s not strong enough to stop it in such a situation.

&#8220When the truck’s rolling back like that, there’s very little thinking time,” Carter said, estimating that his backward speed reached 35 miles per hour.

Carter said he’s driven for FedEx for eight years, that he owns the truck, that he’s had it for eight months and that it had given him little to no trouble until Wednesday afternoon.

&#8220I don’t know why” the truck’s engine quit, Carter said while waiting for Entergy personnel to arrive to remove the broken pole from his truck and for his truck to be towed.

Carter, a Jackson resident, said the delivery is on his regular route, that he delivers 250 to 300 packages in a typical day and that he had about 15 – including equipment for a new phone system at The Corners, co-owner Macy Whitney said – left to deliver when the engine quit.

He said he’ll be back today in a different truck with the 15 packages plus today’s shipments.

&#8220It’s repairable,” Carter said of his truck.

Entergy customer-service manager Don Arnold said the accident resulted in interruption of service to about 140 customers for about three hours.