I heard on the scanner,
that 4 people drove off the river,
they found one person and he was 50,
does anyoone know anything else??

No information is yet available. I just spoke to the Highway Patrol...they do not have an id on the people involved as of yet and will send information for release as it is available.

Emilie Boyles
Montana East Regional News

Thank you,
do they know about if they were women, men, kids?

I talked to one of the people who helped on the rescue earlier. He said that the man was in the water for about an hour and that he was the only one in the vehicle. They believe that he was hallucinating on having the other 3 people with him. Just thought that I would give my information.

Information from the Montana Highway Patrol as of 9:00pm

Mid Afternoon Wednesday a one-vehicle crash occurred in Miles City which ended in a successful water rescue by the Miles City Fire Rescue according to State Trooper Scott McDermott told Montana East Regional News that initial reports suggested that there may have been additional people involved however all of those people were later accounted for. He reinforced that that "all indications at this time are that he was by himself."

McDermott also said that the driver of the vehicle was a man from Sidney, age 49. Although it is an ongoing investigation, it appears that the man was driving on I-94 westbound at Miles City and as he approached the Tongue River Bridge he left the roadway missing the guard rail and went through a wire fence into the water.

No particulars about the rescue were available and law enforcement has not yet released the man's name. He was initially transported to Holy Rosary Hospital in Miles City and was then moved to St. Vincent's Hospital in Billings.

McDermott reinforced that this is an ongoing investigation and no cause of the accident or contributing factors has been determined at this time.
Emilie Boyles
Montana East Regional News

I saw all the emergency vehicles as I was coming in to town this afternoon. Glad to hear that apparently no one was seriously hurt.

I heard on the scanner,
that 4 people drove off the river,
they found one person and he was 50,
does anyoone know anything else??

If you're not going to stick with the proper 5-7-5 format, you really should quit posting Haiku, MiMi.

It should look something like this:

Whilst in scanner land
A tale o' woe I did hear
I hope they're alright

-or-

Driving off rivers
Can only happen when one
Drives a hovercraft

Good God! And no kidding. How does one 'drive off the river'? Let alone four?

Love the haiku's Brian! You're too talented!

Was it really a "water rescue" in the Tongue River in the middle of winter? Maybe his ankles got wet!

Tongue was up pretty good yesterday, judging by the high water mark this morning - about 4 feet or so, and is still running quite a bit. Pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to be in the middle of it.

Interesting . . . in a story updated earlier this morning, KULR is reporting that he went into the Yellowstone - could be they'll need to do another update.

"MILES CITY - A Sidney man was in critical condition Wednesday night after driving his pick-up truck into the Yellowstone River in Miles City. . . ."
http://www.kulr8.com/news...65192.html

You have to be going really fast to drive off of the interstate in MC and land in the Yellowstone . The emergency vehicles were definitely at the bridge over the Tongue FWIW. I thought at the time that they picked a good spot to have a wreck since they were about 75 yards from the hospital.

EDIT: Hmm, they seem to think it was on the Jordan Highway as well. That's pretty far off hehe, and they even made a nice little graphic.

The Billings Gazette is covering this today and has a picture of the rescue. The Tongue looks to be pretty high. Good job to the Miles City Fire & Rescue team.

http://billingsgazette.ne...eriver.txt



[AP / Photo by Steve Allison]

Steve took the picture. As you can see, the Tongue in March is nothing like the Tongue in August.

That is a tough guy there in his short sleeved shirt with ice floating all around him.

A dramatic picture that Steve took.

Great picture. I bet that one winds up on the wall at the firehouse.

OK, so I retract my attempt at being funny above. Where the hell did all that water come from?

Great picture, Steve!

But for some strange reason, I have never wanted an iced mocha latte more in my life than I do at this moment.

I have to say there were some quite interesting and funny comments here. But I would like you to realize that spending an hour in icy water is considered being "seriously hurt". He would have been in the classification of severe hypothermia. He would have been at high risk for cardiac arrest especially during rewarming. So let's remember that they don't have to be bleeding out to be in critical condition.

Not making light of the situation, but the guy's gonna make a full recovery, which is really the best you can hope for when you drive off of a bridge into an ice-filled river.

Four intrepid souls
Drove off the river that had
Been attacking us

Thanks to Brian I'm now speaking Haiku.

I really want to make a smart ass remark to Reese

Sounds to me that he drove down that little drive way beside the bridge, through the fence, and into the water. He actually would have had pretty smoothe 'sailing'. That is the little road that they use when working with the electronic device located in the box next to the river.

You assume that he will make a full recovery, not saying that he won't, but there are other things that play into the situation and possibly medical conditions that we aren't aware of that could cause problems. With technology these days the survival rates have increased. The best part about this situation is that it wasn't a drowning. In reading medical articles and statistics I have learned that the mortality rate for severe hypothermia is close to 40%, of course it all depends on age, medical conditions, and much, much more (including technology available at the facility receiving the patient). If there's one thing I have learned, you can't be so sure about these things.

Buck...what's holding you back?

Personally, I've found the mortality rate for life is 100%.

Everyone dies eventually - we might as well enjoy the time we have and not take everything so damned seriously. Life is the time we have to laugh.

I'm not going to give a rip one way or the other if people laugh at my expense when I die. After all, I'm not going to be around to be offended.