Onlookers manage to rescue driver
Car crashed into Big Thompson River
Local good Samaritans averted disaster Wednesday afternoon when they saved a woman whose car had gone off U.S. 34 into the Big Thompson River west of Loveland.
“I was working back here, and the others saw it, heard and saw,” said Bruce Miller, who was helping build a barn near the property and saw the car go into the river. “I heard the noise. So we ran over there, and we had to get her out of the car. There was smoke coming out from underneath the hood. She did not seem in a life-threatening condition, as far as bleeding, bones, back broken, anything like that, so we felt it was better to get her out of the car, perchance it went up in flames.”
When asked how he felt about the afternoon’s events, Miller, a pastor at Foothills Baptist Church in Loveland, responded: “Rejoicing in the Lord.”
Miller’s boots and jeans were wet up to the knees over an hour later, having waded through the river from the south bank to find the driver pinned in her vehicle by a tree branch.
Onlookers called 911, and Loveland Fire and Rescue Authority personnel responded about 3:30 p.m. to the call that a passenger vehicle had gone off the road and fallen into the river just west of Sweetheart Winery.
Battalion Chief Jason Goodale said the woman, the only passenger in the vehicle, had been taken to the Medical Center of the Rockies after being pulled from the car by bystanders who saw the accident. Fire officials did not know the woman’s condition after her rescue, but witnesses who helped pull the driver from the car said Wednesday afternoon that she appeared stable.
After they arrived on scene, LFRA personnel sent a single firefighter down the bank via ropes to ensure that there were no other passengers in the car, and confirmed that the driver was the only occupant.
LFRA officials said that it ap
peared that some chemical substances, either oil or fuel, were leaking into the river from the car, and that they had contacted the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment to pursue a further investigation. Efforts to keep those substances from flowing further down river were underway Wednesday afternoon, with LFRA employees placing bags and other blocks in the river.
Conversations were underway with county health officials, Goodale said. A spokesperson for the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment could not be immediately reached Wednesday.
Miller said that he was not focused on any leaks from the car as he and other bystanders dragged the driver to safety on the south side of the river, away from the wrecked vehicle. “We were focused on getting her to safety, trying to console her, and checking the vehicle for other occupants. That’s where our focus was,” Miller said.
He praised LFRA officials for their response to the situation. “Law enforcement and EMT’S, they did a great job coming in,” Miller said. “It was really pretty simple, there was no risk to us to get her out.”