Create a free Overdrive account to continue reading

Alaskan trucker avoids injury as truck swept away by rushing river

Updated May 12, 2019
alaska-truck-river

An Alaskan truck driver escaped injury when he was forced off the roadway to avoid an oncoming vehicle. His truck, however, was not quite as lucky, as it ended up in the rushing current of the Matanuska River.

According to an Alaska State Trooper dispatch posted online, trucker Joel Barber, 40, of Palmer, Alaska, swerved off of the Glenn Highway to avoid a crash and bailed out of the 2012 Freightliner before it went into the river on Friday, Aug. 11. The dispatch states Barber was not injured, and the tractor was partially submerged in the river.

Later in the weekend on Sunday afternoon, crews were able to use an airboat, a winch cable and a Caterpillar bulldozer to pull the truck out of the river, according to a report by the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

Help Line Towing took the winch cable out to the truck, which had reportedly floated some 220 feet from the shore, and hooked it up to allow the bulldozer to pull the truck back ashore.

NBC affiliate KTUU was on-site for the truck’s removal from the river, video of which can be seen above.