John Calipari, Kentucky invite heroic Louisville firefighter Bryce Carden, wife to Vanderbilt game

Bryce Carden, a firefighter in Louisville, has had a whirlwind week after saving a truck drivr after her truck went off the side of the city’s 2nd Street Bridge on Friday. That will continue into Wednesday when he will be a guest of honor for Kentucky in their final home game of the year tomorrow.

Kentucky will host their Senior Night against Vanderbilt in the last contest of the season inside Rupp Arena. Now, per confirmations around the state, Carden will be part of those festivities. He and his wife will be present as guests of the program and will sit behind the Wildcat bench.

Our friends @kycauses are bringing Louisville firefighter Bryce Carden and his wife to the UK game tomorrow night. They will be on the 2nd row behind the UK Bench pic.twitter.com/M1hqUklp3K

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) March 5, 2024

The crash occurred on the bridge around noon on Friday last week. A collision between the semi, a pickup truck, and two vehicles sent the large vehicle over the side. The tractor trailer’s driver then dangled off of the bridge for 45 minutes or so before the eventual rescue.

At that point, Carden and his unit sprung into action to save the day. In order to recover the driver, he repelled down off the bridge to the front of the truck. From there, he cut her out of her seatbelt, attached her to a harness as well, and brought the prayerful survivor back up to safety.

In an interview on Kentucky Sports Radio on Monday, Carden used a sports analogy to contextualize the high-pressure situation that he was in.

“I was telling a guy. I said this is like being in the batting cage, taking 1,000 hacks, and then you get up there in the bottom of the ninth,” explained Carden. “Your team got you to this situation, you’ve got bases loaded, and you hit a grand slam.”

Carden also praised he driver for her role in her own rescue. She stayed calm where it made it easier for both of them to complete the act both safely and successfully.

“I’ve given a ton of praise to her, which is credit where credit’s due. She was a military veteran and she had a different sense of being able to hold her emotions, I would say,” said Carden. “She was calm. I could tell — obviously anybody in that situation is gonna be freaked out. But I was able to talk to her, calm her down, and say, ‘Here’s what I need you to do to help me.’”

“She helped me and I helped her,” Carden recalled. “Like I’ve said on a few other things, she started praying. I was like, ‘Why don’t you pray for both of us because we’re both on the end of this ladder?’. So a little bit of comedic relief at that moment to be, like, ‘Just pray for both of us.’”

Since then, Carden has become a national story with interviews both in the state and across the country.

Now, tomorrow night, Carden will receive another honor as a personal visitor for John Calipari and the Wildcats. That leaves it to those in the arena to applaud him again for the heroics that he displayed last week.