It took rescuers nearly two hours to free a trapped driver from his dangling cab in New York on Monday afternoon.
According to Seattle PI, the truck was exiting Interstate 490 when it crashed on the Route 360 ramp. The truck’s trailer was left dangling over the side of the bridge.
It took more than 60 firefighters two hours to free the trapped driver. They used ladders and ropes to free the driver, while trying not to disrupt the truck’s precarious balance on the bridge.
Gates Fire Chief Jim Harrington told WHEC, “If the trailer section had moved forward more, we would have had a catastrophic event, where that whole unit would have come off the bridge. We had to get an aerial device in so we could access the patient who was in the tractor section. At the same time we had to call for some heavy wrecker equipment. From the top, we secured the tractor section to the heavy wrecker which then allowed us to send one of our firefighters down into the cab and begin patient care.”
Once freed, the driver was taken to a local hospital and treated for minor injuries.
There is no information on the cause of the crash.
Sources:
WVIB
Seattle PI
WHEC
Video Credit: WROC