Alaskan Truck Crash: Semi Driver’s Miraculous Survival After Diving into Icy Waterway

When a semi-truck left the Seward Highway and tumbled into the Turnagain Arm, a waterside stretch of the ocean, rescue crews were treated to a peculiar sight – a fully loaded big rig slowly sinking into the chilly water with the driver still firmly inside. As Girdwood Rescue 42, Utility 41, and Medic 41 responded to the distress call, the weather conditions only added to the drama – rain hammered down horizontally, reducing visibility to near zero, while construction had taken out part of the highway’s guardrail.

Despite the truck being submerged for nearly 20 hours, the remarkable survival story takes a different turn when considering the fact that the truck was headed for the frigid abyss without a working guardrail. The rescuers rushed in, and with nothing but a trusty old throw bag, managed to reel in the driver. Fortunately, the driver dodged a major bullet with minor injuries and a boatload of shock.

There are some questions yet to be answered about the incident’s causality. Was poor visibility the main culprit or perhaps the fact that driver took a sharp turn right off the beaten path onto a path less taken? But with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation ensuring that fishy cargo carried by empty fish totes didn’t wreak havoc on the already troubled waters, the ecological footprint of the incident surprisingly was minimal.