DARING RESCUE
On the High Rise Bridge
The winds this April morning were giving Wayne Boone’s massive 2007 semitrailer a good lashing. A driver for a paper recycling company in Virginia, US, Boone steered the empty 18-wheeler up a stretch of the highway, to pick up his first load of the day.
The 53-year-old driver pulled into the eastbound left lane of the G. A. Treakle Memorial Bridge, known to locals as the I- 64 High Rise, a fourlane drawbridge traversing the Elizabeth River. On the span, the storm let loose its full force, finding no obstacles in its path but vehicles, which it pummelled. Boone slowed as wind and rain hammered his windshield.
At the bridge’s crest, 21 metres above the rushing estuary, the concrete road gave way to steel decking. Boone’s front wheels met the slick steel just as a powerful gust blasted the driver’s side.
To Boone, it felt as if the wind lifted his truck clear off the surface. He could swear he floated for a second before being dumped into the right lane. His cab barrelled into the guardrail on the far right edge, mangling the metal barrier that protected his truck from launching into the water below. As he struggled to regain control, his empty trailer jackknifed to the left, skidding sideways.
Fighting both truck and weather, the steering wheel unresponsive, Boone was swept along about 60 metres. Then a second even more violent gust blew through the open mesh of the bridge’s steel grid. It slammed into the driver’s side of the cab and shoved it upwards, lifting the cab, with Boone inside, over the edge of the bridge before dropping it. The cab was now aimed straight down towards the grey-black water.
Chad Little, 49, of the Chesapeake Fire Department, was driving a minute or two from the area when an odd message popped up on his SUV’s touchscreen: “Truck hanging over the bridge.” He flicked on his siren and sped to the High Rise.
The traffic on the bridge was impassable. Little got to the drawbridge’s grid but no further. When he stepped outside, the wind blasted him. He tucked in his chin, walked ahead about 70 metres, and radioed in his assessment. The front cab of a semi-trailer had gone over the High Rise, its trailer still on the bridge. The heavy steel frame where the cab couples with the trailer had literally folded, and the cab, bent at 90 degrees, dangled over the river. Engine, bonnet and fuel tanks had already fallen,
leaving a slick on the water. The driver was trapped in the cab, hanging three metres below the roadbed.
“This will be a complex technical rescue incident,” Little reported. That meant calling in Rescue 15, a team of highly trained firefighter-EMTs who respond when the unthinkable happens: an earthquake, a bombing or some other disaster. He switched to another channel to request the largest fireboat in the region. He needed assets below in case something – or someone – should fall.
Meanwhile, a bystander had tossed a rigging strap and roofer’s harness over the edge of the bridge to the driver. Police officers and civilians stood in a line holding the rope as if in a one-sided tug- of-war. Little knew they wanted to help, but he explained that if they pulled the driver out of the truck without the proper equipment, he was likely to tumble to his death. Once Rescue 15 got there, they would anchor their specialised equipment for a complex rope rescue.
The first ladder truck arrived from the westbound side of the bridge, where traffic was still able to move. Running chains over the concrete barrier that separated east- and westbound lanes, firefighters anchored their truck to the cab’s back wheels.
Wayne Boone, the driver, knew he should be dead. Busting through the guardrail and literally flying through the air before nose-diving towards the river – it had all happened so fast.
How was he still alive? Somehow, the back of his cab had snagged on the bridge’s edge before it could complete its descent. Still strapped into his seat, he dangled at a 90-degree angle above the rushing river, swinging with each new gust. Whatever the force was that held the cab on the edge, he knew it couldn’t last. Gravity and wind would have their say.
Sticky red blood spilled into his eyes. He was injured, but his body had yet to register the pain. He forced himself to focus. If he had any chance of escaping the cab, he had to get free from his seat belt. The position of the cab gave little room to manoeuvre. The cracked windshield exposed the looming dark waters below. If he put
any weight on the glass, he risked breaking through and falling the rest of the way. Under the howling wind, he heard from above, “It’s about to go!”
I have got to get free, he thought. Releasing his seat belt, Boone tried to hang on to the seat, but he immediately slid into the windshield. The glass shifted in its frame. He scrambled upwards, doing his best to grab pieces of the shattered dashboard, getting cut along the way. He slipped again. And again. Each time his feet met the windshield, the glass gave a little more. The next time could be the last. Summoning all his strength, straddling broken bits of truck, he pulled himself between the seats and wedged himself as far as he could behind the driver’s seat; it would have to do.
Minutes passed – to Boone, it felt like hours – before he heard sirens. To his ears, the jarring wail could have been angels singing.
From the bridge above, an onlooker tossed him a harness. Boone reached out his open driver’s side window and pulled it inside the cab. That effort was all he could manage. Disoriented and weak, he could not figure out how to get it on his body.
The call came in to Rescue 15 at 8.43am. The trio on duty – Brad Gregory, Justin Beazley and Mark Poag – piled into the rescue truck and headed to the scene, running through various rescue scenarios to figure out what ropes they would need and where
they should position the equipment.
But their first challenge was more mundane: the sea of red brake lights that greeted them on the bridge. The bridge had, at most, a 60-centimetre shoulder, so the cars had nowhere to go. Beazley jumped down, tapped on windows, and got a few vehicles to move to let them pass. As they inched forwards, the clock ticked on for the dangling truck driver. Traffic filled in behind them, cutting off the possibility of backing up and approaching from the westbound lanes police had cleared. About 200 metres from the accident, it was clear they would get no further. Beazley grabbed harnesses, rope and other gear off the top of the rescue truck
and hitched a ride on Ladder 12, a fire truck headed to the scene in the westbound lane.
Poag and Gregory gathered more equipment from their truck: extra rope, a pulley system called a set-offours, and a belay to anchor equipment. As they marched towards the crippled semi-trailer, the wind grew more intense. Rain and sleet battered them, soaking through to the skin. About a dozen bystanders had left their cars, braving the storm’s fury to stand vigil at the bridge’s edge.
Gregory, Poag and the ladder truck crew quickly devised a plan: Beazley would rappel down to the driver from the extended ladder of one of the trucks, open the door, secure the driver to himself, and the two would be lifted to safety. By now, sustained winds were approaching 80km/h, with stronger gusts. Working shoulder to shoulder, the men had to shout to hear each other above the howling gales.
Beazley walked to the bridge’s edge and tried to process what he saw. Spilled diesel fuel soaked everything on the ground, including their equipment. The cab was barely holding on.
Getting into his harness, Beazley checked the rope and rigging. The ladder operator set the fire engine’s extended ladder in place over the top of the crippled semi-trailer. Firefighters would never usually raise a ladder in such high winds. It could shake the truck, wear out the metal, or even blow the fire engine over. But this was as far from usual as it got.
Poag and another f iref ighter worked the pulley system attached to the ladder, to which Beazley, in his harness, was fastened at the other end. They lifted him over the bridge’s edge, manoeuvred him above the cab, before slowly lowering him.
As he rappelled towards Boone, the wind tossed Beazley like a pinball. He grabbed the cab to avoid being blown into the bridge. He’d planned to open the door to extricate the driver, but now he saw that such a move risked putting more downwards pressure on the vehicle. Any rescue attempt would have to be via the window.
The driver, Beazley realised, was in shock. After dangling in the wind for an hour, waiting to die, he was spent. But his relief at seeing Beazley was evident. “My name’s Justin,” Beazley shouted. “What’s yours?”
Boone replied, but Beazley barely heard him over the wind. “We’re going to get you out of here,” he said. Gripping the cab’s side, he handed the harness through the open window and gave Boone step-by-step instructions for getting into it.
Boone fumbled, clearly too dazed to assist in his own extraction. The wind, meanwhile, wanted to blast Beazley off the cab’s door. The rescue became more precarious by the second as 80-145km/h gusts lashed at both the cab and the rescuer. Beazley realised there was no time left. He would have to get inside the cab.
Pulling his torso through the window, he worked quickly and methodically to get Boone’s arms and legs through the harness loops, securing him to the rope system that tethered them to each other. “C’mon, you can do it,” he reassured, as he grabbed the pulley and hoisted them through the window and fully into the whipping winds. Poag and a second firefighter worked the pulleys to haul them back up. As they cleared the edge, cheers broke out from the crowd on the bridge. Three first responders bearhugged both men and pulled them back over the guardrail. It was over.
Paramedics bundled Boone into an ambulance, but the storm wasn’t quite done. A gust rose up and, despite the securing chains, lifted one side of Boone’s empty semi-trailer into the air and shoved it half a lane across the roadway, prompting the f iref ighters to evacuate the area.
Boone was taken to hospital with lacerations and injuries to his face, neck, shoulder and knees. The worst damage was to his right ear, almost severed from his head in the crash, but doctors were able to save it.
Through it all, Boone had never panicked. He’d accepted his fate. But a stranger had risked his life to save him. Hearing people shout with joy at his rescue had been uplifting. His heart was awash in gratitude.
Back on the safety of the bridge, Beazley had reached out for a handshake. Emotionally and physically drained, Boone had taken his rescuer’s hand and hoped the gesture would say everything he couldn’t.