“Military Tank Transporter Overturns And Falls Into Creek, Trapping Driver”

Military Tank Transporter Overturns And Falls Into Creek, Trapping Driver

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An 88,000-pound military vehicle towing a second tractor skidded off a wet highway, plunged down a 40-foot embankment and came to rest upside down in a Kentucky creek. The driver was trapped—submerged in the creek from his chest down.

“Guess I’m dead, aren’t I?” asked the driver. Fire fighters held the victim out of the water as much as possible while rescue tools were brought down the muddy bank.

On Wednesday morning, March 4, Kentucky National Guard Sgt. Ellis Link had been in a military convoy traveling on the Western Kentucky Parkway in Grayson County. As the 40-year-old Link slowed his tank transporter and second tractor to enter a toll plaza, the Maxi-brake system on the trailing tractor locked and sent the pair of transporters into a jackknife. Out of control, Link’s vehicles went through a guardrail and into the creek.

Lietchfield responds

Toll plaza workers called the Kentucky State Police, Grayson County Ambulance Service and the Lietchfield Volunteer Fire Department. The call came in to central dispatch at 10:13 a.m. as a truck on fire. The first units dispatched were a 250-gpm mini-pumper, a 750-gpm pumper with a 1500-gallon tank, and a van carrying rescue gear. Later a 750-gpm engine was dispatched with more manpower. Fourteen Lietchfield volunteers including Chief Ronald Hudson responded on the first call. The number increased to 25 men before the incident was concluded.

Arriving at 10:17 Hudson found Link with the steering wheel and gear shift trapping his torso and the dash pinning both feet.

Hudson ordered three hand lines into operation when he discovered diesel fuel and alcohol spilling from ruptured tanks. Steam from the radiator had been mistaken for smoke by the toll plaza employees but there was no fire, although the potential was there. Along with the diesel and alcohol, the tractor had an 18-gallon oil capacity.

Quarter-inch steel

As the volunteers began using an hydraulic jaws-type rescue tool, it became obvious this was not going to be a simple extrication. The military vehicle was constructed mostly of quarter-inch steel. “A piece of equipment that was built for war,” Hudson said, “isn’t made to be torn apart by a set of jaws.”

The volunteers positioned the rescue tool early to raise the steering column off Link, but Hudson knew he needed more equipment. He had the dispatcher call Fort Campbell, a military reservation on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. A year earlier another rescue had introduced Hudson to the lifting capabilities of the Chinook helicopter. A request was made for the chopper and any other heavy equipment the army could send.

Two surgeons, Drs. Joe Petrocelli and Ralph Thomas, and an RN were on the scene administering fluids to Link and watching for signs of hypothermia. The rescue operation had been going on for more than two hours.

A second hydraulic rescue tool from the Morgantown Fire Department had been sent and was being used on top of the truck by dropping a chain through the floorboard, wrapping it around the dash and lifting. Hudson told reporters they were having to whittle away at the truck and were concerned with the rising creek. Fire fighters were working in 3 to 4 feet of water. Three hours into the operation only Link’s feet were trapped by the dash, which was still under water.

Doctors set limit

A third hydraulic rescue tool was on its way from the Cave City Fire Department, 45 miles away. At 2:45 p.m., the doctors told Hudson he had one hour to free Link or his condition would worsen. At the end of the hour, if Link was still trapped, the doctors planned to amputate the portion of his feet holding him in the tractor.

Using all three rescue jaws and two ram-type hydraulic rescue tools brought by the Cave City volunteers, Fire fighters concentrated their efforts on the dash holding the victim’s feet. Inch by inch the dash was propped up with cribbing and tools. At 3:30, more than five hours after Link’s ordeal began, he was free. He had endured 48-degree weather and even colder water, but he was in stable condition. Five severed toes had to be reattached by Dr. Thomas. Bruised intestines and blood in the right lung, along with the lacerations on his feet and legs, were the extent of injuries.

Along with the volunteer fire fighters from Lietchfield, Cave City and Morgantown, Hudson had a Chinook helicopter, a Huey Med-a-Vac chopper and a Cobra command ship from Fort Campbell at his disposal. Fort Knox Military Base had sent a tank retriever capable of lifting 52 tons. Neither the large helicopter nor the tank retriever was used because Link was trapped in, not under the wreckage. Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky Division of Forestry, and other agencies had offered their help, but the rescue efforts were coordinated and completed by fire fighters.

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