The Kentucky firefighter who abseiled off a bridge to rescue the driver of a tractor-trailer as it dangled precariously over the Ohio River said he played only a small part in the successful rescue.
The Louisville firefighter Bryce Carden credited teamwork as he talked about the rescue on Good Morning America on Monday.
“I played a very small piece in a large puzzle,” said Carden, attributing the success to “the guys topside and guys on the bottom who helped make it happen”.
Extraordinary photos and video captured of Friday’s rescue of the driver from her cab, which hung over the side of the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge between Louisville, Kentucky, and southern Indiana.
The truck driver was rescued unharmed, but three other cars were involved in the crash and two people were taken to the hospital, Louisville metro police said.
The Louisville mayor, Craig Greenberg said the incident happened when a southbound vehicle hit a stalled car and crossed into northbound traffic, colliding with the tractor-trailer, which went through a guardrail on the bridge.
The trailer ended up between the bridge’s girders, balanced on the edge with the cab hanging over the water, and there were concerns during the rescue that the truck could shift at any moment, the Louisville fire chief, Brian O’Neill, said at a press conference after the rescue.
“It’s extremely lucky, not so much much that it would detach from the trailer, but just that the entire truck didn’t go into the river,” O’Neill said.
It took about 40 minutes to set up a rope system and get Carden ready to abseil down to the cab, hook the driver up to a safety harness and lift her safely back to the bridge surface. She was taken to the hospital as a precaution, he said.
Three lanes of the bridge reopened to traffic on Saturday evening after an inspection. The bridge will need repairs, particularly to a pedestrian sidewalk, but the Kentucky transportation cabinet said its structural integrity was not compromised.