Engulfed in Flames: Fiery Bridge Recovery

By George L. Nitti When Jim Knight, operations manager at Suburban Towing of Louisville, Kentucky, got the call just after 10 a.m. on a rainy Friday morning in June, it sounded like a routine dispatch. But what he and his team encountered on the I-65 bridge quickly escalated into a dramatic rescue and complex recovery effort. 

“A truck’s back end was sticking straight up,” Jim recalled. “By the time we got there, the whole thing had already dropped below the bridge. And it was on fire.” 

The tractor-trailer, driven by a man who miraculously escaped with just a broken ankle, had slid and veered off the roadway after a sudden lane change in wet conditions. The trailer jackknifed, sending the entire unit over the barrier. The truck plummeted 20 feet and burst into flames below the overpass. 

“He couldn’t get the doors open,” said Jim. “He just kept kicking until he forced one open and dropped to the road below. If he hadn’t, he would have burned up.” 

Jim and his crew, including two rotators—a 75-ton and a 40-ton—arrived to find melted aluminum puddled around the cab. “That fire got hot,” he said. “We had to be careful where we hooked. The heat compromised a lot of the structure.” 

Recovery involved lifting, cutting, and separating parts fused by intense fire. With clearance limited under the bridge, the team had to work at tight angles, removing trailer tandems and using landolls and lowboys to haul the debris. 

“The challenge wasn’t brute force,” Jim said. “It was about precision and caution. You’re working with compromised materials, low clearance, and people wandering into danger zones trying to snap photos.” 

Despite the complexity, Jim said the recovery went smoothly—thanks to experience, equipment, and safety-first protocols. 

“You can prepare all you want,” he added, “but no two wrecks are ever the same. You have to stay vigilant. A wrong move could turn a recovery into another accident.”