Truck driver in bridge rescue is “getting the help that she needs”

The truck driver saved in a dramatic bridge rescue is currently away from home “getting the help that she needs,” to emotionally recover from the ordeal, her family says. 

Truck driver Sydney Thomas was rescued from her truck cab as it dangled over the Ohio River following a chain-reaction crash on the Clark Memorial Bridge. Now, a month after the dramatic incident, her mother says that she is still trying to recover. 

“The only thing that got me together at that point mentally…I heard her voice. I heard her voice, she was screaming. So, I knew she was alive,” Sydney’s mom, “Torrie” Carver, said of the bridge rescue. “My heart was breaking, there was no where I could go…but just try to compose myself at that point.”

Torrie says she rushed to the hospital to find her daughter still in shock. 

“When I looked in my daughter’s eyes, it was just shock; it looked like she was crying blood,” she said. “She just kept telling me when I was there, she said, ‘Mom, all I could see was death. I saw death look at me in my face.’”

“I really just wanted to scream to the top of my lungs, but I knew I needed to hold it together for them, for myself, but more than anything, just get on my knees and thank the Lord that he kept my baby,” she said. “I was so grateful, so so grateful.”

Although Sydney did not sustain serious physical injuries in the accident, the mental toll the bridge rescue took on her is forcing her to take some time for herself, so her mother has stepped up to care for her four-year-old son, Mason.

“[Sydney] is not here,” said Torrie. “We have her in a place where she’s safe at the moment and getting the help that she needs.”

“But whatever it takes we’re going to do,” Torrie continued to WHAS 11. “Whatever it is we have to do. She has a village and the village is here and everyone is willing to help.”

Torrie says that it is unclear how long Sydney will be away. 

If we can just take the time to treat one another better, there’s so much more we can do together than against one another. That’s what I’ve taken from this more than anything,” she said. “It’s all going to come back together in due time. Not in my time, but in God’s time.”

Torrie has started a GoFundMe to help her pay the bills while she stays home to care for Mason, as well as to pay for a fence around her yard so that Mason can play safely.