truth or fiction?

Submerged

    I have been driving along thinking as I pull onto the bridge with my old 57 Plymouth Belvedere. Its spotless interior is thanks to my dear wife who is the reason I need to cross this damn bridge tonight. There seems to be a line of last minute Christmas shoppers mixed in with a few department store trucks as we wait for the light to turn green on the other side of the river. It is another dark dreary Ohio gray day with a spit of rain in the air. Not a warm rain but instead a nasty cold rain, not enough to make you run for cover, but enough to irritate the hell out of you if you stayed out in it. it seems the bridge is full a of cars heading into West Virginia to take advantage of lower tax rates , and a better selection of items for Christmas.

     I looked down the river as I had just climbed on the bridge when I was stuck in traffic , a dark gray mist rose above the river valley as the approaches to the bridge gave me a good viewing point to see almost a half mile or better , but it all looked none to good .

      It is always kind of eerie sitting here on this bridge as it seems you feel every car that pulls on to the bridge and then you feel them stop. I look in my rear view mirror and the cars are backed up on my side clean back to where I turned on the road, as we wait for the light to change.  

        I look down through the open metal grate of the bridge deck floor, and see the water swirling around the piers of the giant suspension iron trussed bridge I am sitting on.  It’s not too bad waiting on the bridge but when all you have to do is sit and look out the window , and then be able to see the cold water below it even makes eerie, eerier, if that is possible.

     I try to keep my mind off how high I am sitting above the water and focus on why I am going across this damn bridge in the first place. I just didn’t want a repeat of last year’s fiasco of trying to find a Christmas gift for the wifie and end up with a vacuum cleaner for her. I was young and dumb, how did I know you shouldn’t be practical and buy something that a woman could use. Instead I was supposed to buy her little what not’s and things she wouldn’t normally get. Diane said even  box of chocolates has more surprise than a fucking  sweeper as she smiled that smile that sent shivers down my spine on this cold ass December day. Never again was that going to happen. In fact I was thinking of surprising her with a diamond to replace that second hand gold ring we bought in a pawn shop when we eloped.

     God what was that?   I am feeling the bridge suddenly lurch and it seems as if I am falling, this can’t be real I am falling and the car is too, as we fall towards the river the iron is crashing all around me and the car is now in the water as the water is starting to come in my floorboards and it is cold. I try the door handle and I can’t get the door open. I look out and it seems like I am floating and that the water is cold and my heart feels like it is going to blow out of my chest. I just need to relax as the car sinks deeper and it feels as if I am weightless as the car slowly feels up with water.

      The roof of the Belvedere is now under water and I feel numb as the cold Ohio River water swallows my nerves. I struggle to open the door but it is still fruitless as I am still trapped.  It is dark inside the car with the little air I have trapped inside. I have my head up searching and preparing for that last gulp I am going to take. I decide to try and kick out the windows and find little success with that. I feel around for anything I can use to bust the window and release me as I am going to die if I don’t get out of here. I float to the other side and grab the door there, as the car bumps something and something busts the driver side window out and then I yank the door handle and it releases and I am able to maneuver in the cold and darkness and climb to what little light there is as my lungs were burning with my last gulp of air. I blew through the surface of the river, and coughed up some water in the process. I thought the worst is over now relax and get control of yourself and slowly head to shore as I could see flashlights along the water where they were looking for people already.

      I can swim on my back so I flipped myself over and slowing my breathing, began to pace myself as I set for shore about 100 yards away. I am shivering as I am swimming and then I bump into a something under the water and a hand wraps around my mid-section, it is a woman I can see in the dim light as she grasps on to me. I can help myself when swimming but have a hard time saving anyone and I sink like a rock when I am not moving in the water. On my back I can float forever. She grabbed onto me and hung on and she too pleaded to help her and all I could do was to remain calm and continue for shore. I set my mind to the task and forced my arms to move harder and more controlled and backstroked my way towing her along, and in the dim light I swam to a mangled piece of bridge strut sticking out of the water. I was becoming exhausted not only trying to save myself but then save another. I yelled for her to grab on to the metal strut and hang on, but she didn’t want to.   Then at that time I felt myself slipping back into the water and then a hand pulled me up out of the cold and pulled me back to that strut. It was the same woman I had helped who was saving me.

      Voices and a boat were getting close as I hugged her in the icy water as we clung to the iron that had failed us such a short time ago. Soon we were in the boat and headed for shore , the boat was close to being over loaded at that moment with just the four of us, we off loaded the woman and I , and I helped her up the slick muddy bank and into the arms of waiting fireman who offered her and I blankets and a trip to the hospital .

    Before leaving for the hospital the sheriff took my name and asked if I had any passengers. Again he repeated that with the woman who I had helped earlier, and she said her name and indicated she was alone too. And soon we were racing down icy back roads to the hospital. I was becoming scared as the driver was hurrying too much and I asked him to slow down, and this he did as I looked at the woman who was now huddled in my arms as we shared warmth. We needed help still, but not another accident at the moment.

      When we arrived at the hospital we could see other survivors that had arrived before us and some were laying there in agony as they had missing arms and tourniquets and gauze covering apparent bloody stumps. I tried to look in the face of the poor soul lying there but could not bring myself to share all his pain.

     After this incident I had to ask myself why I allowed myself to be there at that moment when the bridge collapsed and what it really meant to me. It was almost an end to my life and realizing what it was that made me want to be there was not really that important as much as living.

    I had good intentions when I bought her a sweeper, and no it wasn’t a diamond ring, but still my flawed sense of reasoning and her aggressive reaction forced me to be there. After the accident Diane was forever being apologetic and realizing what had happened to me and why I was there , made her only want me more.

    Too little too late. By now my mind was made up to never to go down that road again. I was spared for a reason and that was to save Maxine’s life. She too, had been floundering in a going nowhere relationship, and we kept in touch after the bridge collapse. At our second annual picnic in remembrance of the day and the souls lost on the bridge, I was finally able to propose to her, having divorced Diane.

      Maybe the reason that I divorced Diane was that I was just trying to please her, and that was what put me on the bridge and nearly sent me to my death, but it was Kathy who reached out to me in the darkness and pulled me close, saving me from certain death. And it is only her touch I need in the middle of the night when the dream appears and I am sinking. It is Maxine that reaches out to me and says it will be all right it will be ok. With her it is always good.  

Point Pleasant, WV Bridge Over Ohio River Collapses, Dec 1967 | GenDisasters ... Genealogy in Tragedy, Disasters, Fires, Floods