Big Rig Saga Finally Ending
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Crew were finishing up clearing out the mess that's had part of I-45 shut down for more than 24 hours Tuesday night. That 18-wheeler that slipped off an icy overpass has finally been removed.
As of 10 p.m. Tuesday night, Texas Department of Transportation workers were standing by to add a temporary guardrail and open the highway back up.
As workers climbed onto that 18-wheeler hanging precariously from an overpass, Renea Monroe watched on line. Her husband, Larry straddled the truck, hooking it to cables. Her uncle, Johnny was the one dangling on the edge himself, to secure the cab.
"He's always up for an adrenaline rush, so I kinda knew that they would go," says Renea Monroe.
The men say they were focused on the job, not the danger.
"At the time you really can't be scared," says Larry Monroe of McIntyre Towing. "You gotta do what you gotta do. It's a little scary at times. Things moved around, there's a lot of noises going on."
The big rig became lodged under the bridge and it took at least four different tow companies working together to slowly pull it up.
"I'm very tired, I'm past being tired, I'm past exhaustion, I'm past being cold," says Phillip Eustace of Pro-Tow Wrecker. "We've tried everything in the world we could do to get that truck over the top of that bridge."
Eustace says he worked 20 hours straight before one final tug.
"Absolute adrenaline rush that you cannot imagine," says Eustace. "And when it comes loose and comes at you, it's a very scary feeling. Everybody gets excited once everything stops moving and everything's good. But when you got stuff in the air, cables popping, things are moving, it's scary."
Workers called a crane company but say it refused to set up on the bridge. They also had a truck slide on the ice when they first tried lifting the truck. But no one was hurt, not even the truck driver who plunged over the side of that highway.
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