Louisville firefighter tells story of dramatic bridge rescue on KSR

By now, you’ve seen the footage of the semi-truck dangling off the Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville on Friday. The story of the dramatic rescue has gone national. After appearing on “Good Morning America,” the firefighter who pulled the driver to safety called into KSR to tell the tale. You’ll be happy to find out he’s not only a Kentucky fan, but a loyal KSR listener.

After staying up with his one-and-a-half-year-old most of the night, Bryce Carden was hoping for a calm day at the firehouse. When the call came in that a semi-truck was hanging over the side of the bridge, he got the nod from his captain that he was the one who was going to be suspended from the crane to rescue the driver. After arriving on the scene and suiting up, Carden said adrenaline and instinct kicked in after training for the scenario hundreds of times.

“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. Your team got you to this situation, you’ve got bases loaded and you hit a grand slam.”

Carden said the fact that the truck driver, a military veteran, was able to keep her cool was a huge help.

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

“Just pray for both of us”

In addition to talking through getting the harness on and cutting off the seat belt, Carden was able to bring a little levity to the situation.

“She helped me and I helped her and like I’ve said on a few other things, she started praying and 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.'”

The rescue was shown live on multiple news stations in Louisville. Carden’s wife was watching at home while feeding their daughter and didn’t find out it was him hanging from the rope until halfway through. He had texted her that he was on his way to the scene and left his phone at the firehouse.

“She just was overcome with emotion obviously and started freaking out. But yeah, it was a bad way to leave her, but it was funny now, looking back because everything was successful.”

Hear more of Carden’s story below, including his shoutout to J-Rock. A huge UK fan, I think Carden deserves to be the Y at Wednesday’s game vs. Vanderbilt, don’t you?

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