Almost three months after the crash on the Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville that left a semi dangling over the Ohio River with the driver trapped inside, dashboard camera footage surfaces to show how it all happened. The driver of the semi remembers the horrifying moments when she thought she would not come out alive.
Sydney Thomas was the semi driver who was inches away from a tragedy. She tried to avoid a pickup truck whose driver, 33-year-old Trevor Branham, swerved on the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge that links Louisville, Kentucky, Kentucky, to southern Indiana. Branham crashed into the semi that Sydney was driving and partially knocked it off the bridge.
"It happened so fast," she recalled in a conversation with ABC News, speaking to the media for the first time since the accident while looking at the bridge. Her truck went through the guardrail as if it wasn’t even there. The next thing she knew, she was dancing above the Ohio River, almost certain that she was living the final moments of her life.
"I was like, I can’t believe this, that I am really hanging over the river," she said. At the time, she was even considering she would have to jump to avoid crashing with the entire semi that would have definitely taken her with it straight to the bottom of the river. Sydney didn’t even know how to swim. However, rescue divers were waiting in the water below.
She did not know how much of the truck was hanging down hundreds of feet above the water. "I didn't know how bad it was. I thought the trailer was still on the bridge. I didn't know it was like this," she said gesturing to indicate the angle that the semi was leaning over the edge of the bridge.
She knew that the vehicle could plunge into the water at any moment and take her with it. Her first thoughts were with her five-year-old son and what would happen to him if she died.
But the firefighters from the Louisville Fire Department had other plans for her that day. They rushed to the bridge, and after a 40-minute rescue operation, the type that you would only see in Hollywood-made action-packed movies, they pulled her back to safety.
The hero of the day was firefighter Bryce Carden, who strapped himself with a safety belt and went down to save her. He buckled her into the harness and pulled her out of the dangling truck. Her return to safety was accompanied by a round of applause for all those who witnessed the rescue operation holding their breath.
The driver of the pickup truck who caused the horror crash, Trevor Branham, was charged with endangerment and driving on a suspended license.
Luckily, Sydney Thomas was not injured in the crash that took place in March. Even though she was scared to death she hopes to be back on the road by June.
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