Firefighter Rescues Driver in Truck Hanging Over Kentucky Bridge

U.S.|‘I Have You’: Firefighter Rescues Driver From Truck Dangling Off Bridge https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/us/trucker-rescued-kentucky-bridge.html You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. For nearly an hour, the driver was trapped in a tractor-trailer leaning over the side of a Kentucky […]

Firefighter Rescues Driver in Truck Hanging Over Kentucky Bridge

Firefighter Rescues Driver in Truck Hanging Over Kentucky Bridge thumbnail

U.S.|‘I Have You’: Firefighter Rescues Driver From Truck Dangling Off Bridge

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/us/trucker-rescued-kentucky-bridge.html

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

For nearly an hour, the driver was trapped in a tractor-trailer leaning over the side of a Kentucky bridge until a firefighter lowered on a rope made a daring rescue.

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A rescuer pulled the woman to safety after a crash left the vehicle hanging over the Ohio River on a bridge in Louisville, Ky.CreditCredit…John Sommers Alamy Live News, via Associated Press

For nearly an hour, the driver of a tractor-trailer was trapped in its cab as it dangled high above the Ohio River off the side of a Kentucky bridge after a multivehicle crash on Friday.

From the bridge, emergency responders shouted directions to the driver. Emergency crews set up a rope system and lowered a Louisville, Ky., firefighter, Bryce Carden, to rescue her.

“Thank God,” the driver said when Mr. Carden drew even with the truck’s cab, he recalled at a news conference on Friday.

Initially, Mr. Carden said, he struggled to free the driver from her seatbelt.

“We were given a free pocketknife during our trainings, and I had that pocketknife on me, so I was able to cut her out of her seatbelt,” he said in a phone interview on Saturday. “I was able to get her out and get the rest of the harness on her.”

The driver and Mr. Carden, who were now attached to each other, were about 100 feet above the river as they were lifted up to the bridge, a process that took about five minutes.

“I kept telling her ‘I have you, I have you,’” Mr. Carden said on Saturday. “She was just thanking God, and then I told her, ‘Let’s just keep praying together.’”


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