After a truck slammed Tom Sanches against a wall during a Roseville street fair, doctors weren’t optimistic he would make it through the night.

But nearly three weeks later, the 67-year-old is showing signs of improvement, his son said.

“He’s just a tough guy,” Jim Sanches, 40, of Orangevale said of his father, a retired general contractor.

Still, Sanches is not out of the woods following what’s believed to be a tragic accident on May 13.

He remains in critical condition at Sutter Roseville Medical Center as doctors treat several major internal injuries, including punctured lungs, broken ribs, a broken pelvis and loss of kidney function. Doctors hope to be able to operate on his pelvis soon, he said.

“Some days it seems like it’s one big nightmare,” Jim Sanches said. “You think, maybe there could be a heart problem, but you never expect a call from out of the blue of some freak accident.”

His staggering wounds occurred when a 1941 Chevy pickup being driven by Sanches’s friend jumped a curb while backing into a parking space. The truck pinned Sanches, who was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk, against a building on the 500 block of Vernon Street.

Onlookers probably saved his life by working to free Sanches from the truck’s grip, fire officials said at the time.

Both Sanches and the truck’s driver were exhibiting classic cars for Downtown Tuesday Nights, the weekly summer street fair on Vernon Street that they had attended for several years.

Tom Sanches regularly showed his 1941 Chevy coupe at the event, where he was a well-known personality, his son said.

“That’s his favorite activity especially this time of year through the summer,” Jim Sanches said. “A lot of those people who went to the car show knew my dad.”

Tom Sanches is still unable to talk, and is conscious for only brief periods, his son said. But he and mom Jackie have been able to communicate a bit through gestures, he added.

Jim Sanches said his family is “taking it day by day” but added he has no ill will over what appeared to be a tragic accident.

“It’s nothing where you can lay the blame,” said Sanches, a school teacher. “It’s nothing intentional that happened.

“I don’t think you can really be angry at anybody in a situation like this. You just have to put positive energy into your loved one rather than negative energy into why it happened.”