IDAHO RESCUE TEAMS PULL COUPLE FROM TRUCK DANGLING ABOVE GORGE
By Matt White
Highly trained mountain rescue paramedics from around southern Idaho leaped into trucks, cars, and even a helicopter to retrieve a couple — and their two dogs — from the cab of a pickup truck dangling from a highway bridge over a mountain canyon Monday. The man and woman inside, both in their 60s, were pinned by their own seatbelts and helpless to escape as their truck hung from a single safety chain above a 100-foot plunge.
After hitching a ride on a helicopter normally used for transporting critical patients, specially trained paramedics from the Twin Falls-based Magic Valley Special Operations and Rescue Team, or SORT, rappelled to the truck and brought both passengers and their dogs to safety.
“The truck was trying to pass somebody and they had bounced off one railing and went over the other side,” Brandon Covey, the fire chief of the Gooding City Rural Fire Department told Coffee or Die Magazine. “They were just dangling.”
Initially, Covey said, the 2004 four-door Ford F-350 — a truck that used-car databases list as weighing at least 6,000 pounds — hung like a pendulum over the Malad River gorge, 100 feet below and about 30 miles north of Twin Falls.
BZ Idaho First Responders- article and video here: Coffee Or Die
Category: Bravo Zulu, First Responders
Balls.
Word.
That couple needs to buy all them folks a nice dinner somewhere and then go buy a Lottery Ticket. And wear that safety chain as a Talisman.
BZ to the SORT Troops. “All in a day’s work.”
Fleetwood Mac does it again! (Grin)
?
BZ to the pararescue folks.
And tell the driver “NEVER pass on a bridge.”
My Daddy taught me that more than a half-century ago.
Hack Stone learned a Life Hack the hard way. Hack was heading home on leave town get married. Sleet and rain were covering the North Carolina State Highways. Crossing an overpass with a slight curve, Hack noticed that he was a bit too close to the car in the adjacent lanes. Slight modification to the steering wheel, and Hack’s Oldsmobuick did what seemed to be a 1080 (that would three 360’s). Ended up in the center median bog down in the muddy grass. Took a bit of tactical driving skills to get it back on the road.
Was Bing with Hack?
https://youtu.be/iJtWLMrtf1k
I wanna know who makes that particular safety chain.
If their PR department doesn’t use this in an ad…
No kidding. That was my first thought as well. Those chains aren’t normally rated for that. Impressive chains.
Depends on whose you buy. Quick cruise through Amazon shows lots of foreign chains with 2-5000 lb breaking strength – for a few bucks more https://www.amazon.com/Curt-Manufacturing-80316-Safety-Chain/dp/B0007LVJM0/ref=psdc_15737571_t5_B0007LVJIO
less than $30 gets you a chain rated at 24,000 pound breaking strength. Looks to be US made, too.
I just took a look at my 6 ton equipment trailer.
The chains are 1/4″ with 1/4″ grab hooks.
They are attached to 3/8 flat stock on the frame.
The above linked (pun) chains would be a nice upgrade.
Thanks.
I would have SHIZZ my pants twice hanging off the bridge.
but WTF was there issue passing on a bridge???
I always thought that was a No-Go
Should have read the article first
It’s a four lane road
It’s not the lane count, it’s the physics.
Inertia, laterally.
Also, bridges frequently have crosswinds, and the approach may shield the road from the winds until you are out on the span.
Inertia, and energy management.
And the edge of the road is now “sky”. Oops.
Bridges often have expansion joints
which can get you crabwise mid flight.
Definitely would have sharted for sure, Skippy, and confessed all my sins… No BS, that right there is a life changing event.
BZ to the rescue team on that high angle rescue job.
On my best day, confronted with that rescue, my bung hole would have been high and tight.