Wanna hear a crazy fuckin story?
 

I live out in the country, about ten miles from the nearest big town. And, the front edge of my property is a stream.

Tonight, about 1am, I'm working, the wife is asleep. Suddenly I hear a giant metal screech and a series of crashes. damn loud.

Well, I go to see what the hell this is. And I discover that a pickup truck has come flying over the edge of my property and landed, top down, in the middle of the creek. The lights are on, and the truck is clearly very smashed up, even from 75 feet away with a flashlight I can see this is a very very bad situation.

I run back into the house, and frantically get offline and start trying to call 911. At this point the wife has woken up, and I hand the job of calling the police off to her, I grab more lights and a crowbar, and run out to see if whoever is in the truck was still alive.

I walk into the freezing stream, and pound on the truck with the bar, shouting "can you hear me? Are you okay?". No answer.

I run back to the house and tell Marisa to call 911 again and say there is no response from the driver and that he or she might be badly hurt.

I go back out, and work more at opening the doors with the crowbar. I walk around the truck, no easy task in 20 inches of rushing water, and see a mans butt sticking out of the crushed window of the truck. Not moving, except in reaction to the water slamming into the side of the truck.

I keep trying to open the door, altho it is clear the crushed top[ of the truck won't let it open.

I'm yelling at the body, more "Can you hear me? Help is coming." type shit. About this time the first cop car arrives, but it's not so easy to get down to the stream, I yell to the cop "Over here, over here", etc.

Just as the cop figures out how to get down to the stream I can see the guy in the truck is moving, and can hear him start to say "help, help". Which is a big relief, because i thought for sure he was dead, the way he had been stuck there, nothing but his butt showing, obviously bent double, and totally not moving.

The cop takes over the crowbar, and I hold his light and mine to light things up as well as possible. But the crowbar isn't accomplishing much. Finally more cops show up, but nobody has any tools. All this crazy shit is happening, too much to mention here.

I say to these cops , "Do you want a pickaxe?", because it;'s the strongest leverage tool I have close by. After a few minutes, I just go get the pickaxe and a shovel. More minutes pass, and suddenly it;s like every cop and fireman in the county is there, huge light trucks turn blazing lights on us, I'm holding two flashlights and two cops and a fireman are using my tools to bash open the truck door. Funnily enough, despite the fact that there are maybe fifty people here at that point, and the sky is blazing with cop lights, they don't have any other tools with them except two bolt cutters.

Long story short, the door of the truck is battered open with a pickaxe and the guy is hauled out. My feet are freezing, I'm in sweat pants and a shirt, no coat, but so adrenalized I don't feel the cold, except for my feet.

I lost a great flashlight which fell into the water and was washed downstream, too.

Here's a picture of the truck in the stream about an hour after the guy was hauled out - you can just see the wheel of a police vehicle at the top of the picture - most of the cops and fireman had left by this point.

Oh man..that is crazy. I always worried about that at my old house. The only thing that ever happened was the fedex truck going into the truck. I was able to pull him out because he said that if he called the office, he might get fired. But it was not life threatening.

So now my wife thinks I'm a hero. Which ain't a bad thing at all.

But I'm way too adrenalized. ;-}

Here's another pic, taken about 15 minutes after the first I think.

They are just now finishing up hauling the truck out of the stream. There are still a few cop lights flashing out there.

I left out a bunch of shit - it was just too fucking crazy for words.

But the guy is alive, apparently.

I am so fucking glad I didn't have somebody dieing on me there in my nice quiet little trout stream.

Oh shit - Glad the guy is OK. Good job you heard it.

Holy Shit !! That's incredible !!!

Sounds like you did the right thing in a very intense situation... congrats on keeping your head together !!

Incredible !!

Good Job Bill and good thinking on the crowbar and pick ax.

You are a Hero Bill :)

|thumb Good job Bill!! you kept a cool head (and cold feet) during a tense situation.

Now that'll get the old ticker pounding like a jackhammer.

Way to go, Bill. |thumb

Wow you have an exciting life Bill. :D

Glad the dude in the truck got out alive. :)

We have people die all the time here driving into canals. I've never really understood why they die. The canals aren't that deep and the water is warm. Had a woman die a dew months ago while talking to 911 on the phone from inside of her car as the car sunk underwater. No idea why she didn't just open the door or roll down the window and climb out.

Wow Bill
What a story!

That man is very lucky that you were up working at that time. Good job Bill |thumb

A very lucky guy indeed. What a rude way to treat a nice truck.

Even with cold feet, you didn't back away :D

Seriously though, pretty heroic efforts...nicely done Bill |thumb

He was lucky you kept your wits about you, good job Bill |thumb

I agree that you are a hero Bill |thumb Way to go in helping that poor guy in the truck. Sounds like a hell of night you went through.

Great story, good job Bill! |thumb

Great job Bill :D |bow|
How comes those policemen didn't have tools? Bleh.

Wow! nicely done Bill! |bow|

Good deed like that should fill ya up inside with fuzzy feelings for a while. |thumb

Way to go Bill, just reading the story got my ticker raceing

Nice Bill. Being it was a Friday night, I take it at that time in the morning the guy was drunk? Cool you were there. I never understood how cops and firemen can drive around without things to open car doors.
This past Wednesday I was picking up my friend for work when he had a diabetic seizure. The 1st group of people to show up at the house was the firemen. They had nothing to help the guy. All they did was yell in his hear while he was flopping around and try to give him the orange juice. Basically the same thing I was doing with the kids’ dad.
But Bill very very cool. Feels good to save a life don't it. Now if the guy is a nice guy he will buy you a new flashlight.

Wow, that kinda wiped me out, I haven't been able to accomplish much this weekend. My ankle is sore from banging it on rocks in the stream.

What a sound! It woke my wife up from a sound sleep.

Yeah, the guy was drunk. He managed to get his truck up on top of a guardrail and slid along it for about 50 yards until the nose of the truck caught a post solidly, whereupon he was launched into the air, flying end over end, so that the truck ended up upside down in the creek, pointing in the opposite direction of the way he's been traveling.

Another wierd thing - a strange visual from the night - the guy apparently had a gun and several boxes of shells in his truck, because the stream bed was littered with the shining brass of shotgun shells and more closed boxes of shells, and a gunstock was sticking out the truck window.

Oddly enough none of my neighbors seemed to hear or react to it. If I hadn't been around to hear it the guy would have been lying in the stream all night, because there is no easy way to see down to the stream from the road.

I hope I never have to see that many cop cars in my front yard again. It makes me feel kinda paranoid. I never expected to see anything like that, except in my dark fantasies of a neocon/american taliban roundup of adult webmasters. ;-}

Shh!!! You're scaring me! |couch|

Seriously, that's quite a story there Bill. Glad to hear someone as compassionate and dedicated as you was around to help out.

yeah I can see how that would be a very bad nightmare. Good thing you heard the crash otherwise to wake up to a yard full of police cars might send someone into an early coranary.

I've been watching THIS site in case they put it up but I'm thinking very doubtful given the fact they'd have to admit they didn't have the RIGHT tools.

Hope you are feeling a bit better, Bill. |roses|

Wow! Good Deal! Great you were there. It's always freaky when shit happens and YOU are the only one around. You're definitely a hero!

RE: Rural living. I've loved rural living in the past but something has changed me to make it harder now as a choice. Your example of no police/fire guys having tools, jaws of life, etc. is prime of my paranoid feelings now. If I lived in the country now, I would need two of every damn thing to feel comfortable. As it is now I HAVE the homeland security package in a closet. Tons of tools, all kinds of emergency gadgets, flashlights and swiss army knives everywhere, a generator, blowtorch, a trunk of camping gear AND dehydated food, just tons of stuff. Most of it in my storage area and some more in a garage I rent. Thing is I live on the top floor of a big city skyscaper and I know I'll probably never need or use any of it and am just being stupid. I don't think I couldn't afford rural anymore my sheds would be bigger than the house and I'd constantly be buying plans for hurricane, flood, an bomb shelters. Jeesh!