Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThisThe Horror Sinks In
About 30 feet from shore, Rick noticed a red car in the river—the water was up to the driver’s window. Behind the wheel, he saw a man, bleeding profusely from his mouth, trying to open the door. Rick took off his polo shirt and untied his boots. If the car flipped, he wanted to be able to swim. His fear of the river was behind him, but he still knew the Mississippi was fast and dangerous.High above Rick, Sarah Mundy’s red Caprice had come to a rest on the ledge of the broken bridge, its front tires hanging over the edge.
All Sarah could think of was finding her cell phone to call Ted and her family. To tell them she loved them. She couldn’t locate the phone, but, with the air bag still in her face, she managed to get her purse and wallet. The silver-spoon-handle ring had been whipped off her finger. She found it on the floor of the car, picked it up and put it back on just as the air bag started to smoke. She thought the car was on fire and pushed hard on the door to get out.
When she exited, she didn’t dare look in front of her. There was a huge drop-off, and her car was dangling halfway off the bridge. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” she was crying. “What’s going on? What’s going on?”
The road was so covered with debris and so steep that she wasn’t able to stand up. She slowly crawled uphill on her hands and knees until she found a place to sit behind her car.
“We’ve got to get off this bridge,” Sarah heard someone say.
Somewhere below her, next to a school bus, a Tastee truck had slammed into a slab of concrete. It began, slowly at first, to burn, then burst into flames.
Bernie Toivonen returned to the woman in the blue van. She was still dangling in her strap. “I have a knife. I can cut the seat belt,” he said. At that, she seemed to realize she could unbuckle herself. She did, and Bernie helped her out the driver’s-side window, jagged with shards of glass. Then he guided her through the rubble to a retaining wall. He found some bottled water for her, and someone gave her candy. When she seemed ready, he and an emergency worker did a fireman’s carry to get her up the embankment.
Bernie had been running on autopilot. Now the horror of what had happened started to sink in—100 feet farther on, he’d probably have died; 100 feet back, he’d have ended up like the minivan. He was thankful to be alive.
His boots and shirt off, Rick Kraft started into the water, going to the aid of the man in the half-submerged car. He was hurt. Another volunteer appeared, and he and Rick waded over to the car and cut the man free. “Okay,” Rick told the driver, “we’re going to do this nice and slow.” He and the volunteer grasped the injured man under his armpits and inched him out. His leg banged against something, and he screamed. Once he was free, Rick wrapped an arm around the man’s chest in a lifeguard carry and pulled him through the murky water to shore.
Rick was exhausted when they finally made it. He looked around for help, for someone with a backboard. When he turned away, the man slipped back into the river. Rick grabbed him and held his head out of the water. The man’s mouth was bloody. It looked like all his teeth had been knocked out. Then his eyes began to close. “Hey! Hey!” Rick yelled at him, snapping his fingers. “Hey, what’s your name?” Rick kept him talking until paramedics arrived.
Advertisement 
