Kentucky firefighters make daring rescue to save truck dangling on overpass

It was a heart-stopping scene in Louisville, Kentucky.

The cab of a crashed tractor-trailer precariously dangled from an overpass on I-65 — with the driver inside.

He can be heard pleading for help in an emotional 911 call from Sunday morning. 

“I’m just hanging over the bridge, I don’t want to die,” the driver said.

He asked the operator to stay on the line.

“If I don’t survive, can you just leave the recording to my family?” the driver asked.

Martyna Wohner was on the other end, reassuring him throughout the more than 18-minute phone call. “They’re going to get you out,” she said.

And that’s what they did.

Once the Louisville Fire Department stabilized the truck with chains, a firefighter was gingerly lowered into the cab using a rope system connected to a tower ladder.

Fire Chief Brian O’Neill described the operation as “fundamentally dangerous.”

“Once [the firefighter was] in there, he has to get that climb harness on to the victim and then tie him in, so that it can then hoist them out of there,” O’Neill said.

In all, it took just over 30 minutes.

O’Neill said has only witnessed this kind of operation once before in his 24-year career. Last March, the department made another big-rig rescue with the driver hanging over the Ohio River. 

Remarkably, in both incidents, authorities say everyone made it out OK.

Video shows that the driver in the latest incident, who has yet to be identified by officials, even flashed a thumbs-up as he was lowered to the ground.

“We see people oftentimes on their worst day,” O’Neill said. “And so when you get to know that this person who had this … terrifying moment that has now gone to safety, gets to be reunited with his family, that’s exactly why we do the job.”