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Montana man sees slide-off, slides off
spectacularly |
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January 19, 2012 |
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Boundary
County's first responders did everything
right in rescuing an elderly Montana man
from a crash that could have been much
worse. |
Traffic on U.S. 95 was snarled this afternoon
after an 80-year-old Montana man, whose name has
not yet been released, lost control of his
Cadillac, rolled over a guard rail and plunged
down a steep embankment and through several
trees before coming to rest at the bottom nearly
20 feet below ... and it turns out that he
crashed on encountering the flares of a "simple"
slide off that deputies were attending just a
little further south.
While his name hasn't yet been released,
Sheriff's personnel say that it appears the
driver in the Cadillac was traveling south on
U.S. 95 just south of Mirror Lake Golf,
travelling too fast for weather conditions, when
he enountered the flares laid out to protect a
slide off that had occurred only moments
earlier. The deputy at the initial scene saw the
Cadillac fly off the highway, and immediately
called for help.
When he got to the new scene, he radioed
dispatch shortly before 1 p.m. and called for
all the backup available, including extrication.
The driver of the car told those first at his
side that he didn't think he was hurt, but
the deputy noticed the man had suffered some
fairly significant lacerations and called for an
ambulance. He also noticed that it was going to
be a chore to free the man from his vehicle ...
let alone get the man back up to the roadway up
an extremely slick and icy slope ... to a
highway so slick it was difficult to stand on,
let alone drive.
Very soon the area was teeming with flashing
lights; Idaho State Police, firefighters from
South Boundary, Paradise Valley, the City of
Bonners Ferry. Bonners Ferry City Police,
Boundary Search and Dive Rescue, nearly every
nearby unit from Boundary Volunteer Ambulance
... and regular traffic was backed up, both
ways.
Amazingly, the driver was pulled from his
formerly beautiful car, not only worse for the
wear for having gone through the trauma of
shattering several heavy wooden posts on its way
over the guardrail, down a steep embankment and
through a few relatively small trees, but having
had the driver's door and most of the roof cut
off by local rescue personnel to free him from
the car, was stabilized and pulled quickly to
the highway by a team of rope experts and into
the waiting ambulance, where he was checked out
and zipped to Boundary Community Hospital.
"He was beat up a little," one EMT said, "and he
didn't remember much about the incident, but he
was in remarkably good shape. Had he been
driving anything less than an American-made
Cadillac, he might not have survived." |
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