Incredibly Quick Crane Rescue Saves Semi-Truck Driver Dangling off Bridge

The Louisville, Kentucky, Fire Department sprang into action over the weekend to save a truck driver stuck in the cab of his semi-truck, dangling over the edge of a bridge. It’s unclear how the driver crashed, but the cab of his truck came to rest precariously dangling off the concrete barrier of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge over the Ohio River. A harrowing 911 call and a dramatic rescue followed.

The 911 call recording was released to local news outlets. It’s heavy, but the marooned driver sounded fairly calm considering the circumstances. “Will you guys please help me, I’m about to … I’m about to fall down from the bridge,” the driver told the 911 dispatcher. “I’m just hanging over the bridge. I don’t wanna die.”

The driver was reportedly stuck inside the cab for 18 minutes while waiting for emergency services to arrive. The 911 dispatcher stayed on the phone with him until the rescue team could get there. While 18 minutes doesn’t seem like a long time to wait for, say a table at a fancy restaurant, it would likely feel like an eternity while starting more than 300 feet down, with nothing but a windshield and a seatbelt between you and a fatal fall. It’s a long time to think about the worst happening, and how every movement, every shake or bounce, could cause the cab’s connection to break. So the driver asked the dispatcher to do him a favor just in case.

“Please, if I … if I don’t survive, can you just leave the recording for my family, too?”

Thankfully, the worst didn’t happen, the cab’s connection to the trailer held, and the driver didn’t fall. Once the rescue team reached him, they lowered a crewmember down to the cab via a rope connected to a firetruck’s boom ladder, who then hooked the driver up and pulled him out. Despite his earlier panic, the driver was calm once help arrived.

“Once our firefighter got into the cab with him, he was great,” LFD Chief Brian O’Neill told WHAS11.

Aside from the emotional trauma of expecting to plummet to his death, the driver thankfully wasn’t injured. He was taken to the hospital but only as a precaution, was released the same night.

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