OVER THE EDGE

The tractor-trailer crashed through the bridge’s guardrail, leaving its cab dangling high over a river. Could they rescue the driver before it dropped?

- Anita Bartholomew

The winds on the morning of April 13, 2020, gave Wayne Boone’s tractor-trailer a good whipping. Boone, a 53-year-old driver for a paper-recycling company in Suffolk, Virginia, steered the empty 18-wheeler up Interstate 64 in Chesapeake toward Virginia Beach, about 50 kilometres away, where he would pick up his first load of the day.

He pulled into the eastbound left lane of the G.A. Treakle Memorial Bridge, known locally as the I-64 High Rise, a four-lane drawbridge that traverses the southern branch of the Elizabeth River. Up there, the storm let loose its full force. Rain hammered Boone’s windshield. Winds grew fierce. Boone slowed, letting other cars pass. He needed to get to the other side.

At the bridge’s crest, 21 metres above the estuary, the concrete road gave way to the steel decking grids of the mechanism that allowed the drawbridge sections to open whenever tall watercraft passed underneath. Even in perfect weather, it was easy to lose traction on the grids. Boone’s front wheels met the slick surface just as a powerful gust blasted the driver’s side of his truck.

To Boone, it felt like the wind lifted the truck clear off the surface. He could swear that, for a second, he was floating before being dumped into the right lane. He had no time to consider how such a thing could be possible. His cab barrelled into the guardrail on the far right edge, mangling the metal barrier that protected his truck from ditching into the churning water below. He struggled to regain control. His empty trailer, meanwhile, jackknifed to the left, skidding sideways at an angle to the cab.