North Carolina Bridge Collapses; Takes Responding Fire Apparatus & It’s Firefighters With It

The 1996 fire truck flipped over and came to rest on its top and right side, upstream from and completely off the bridge.Brooks said he and the other four firefighters crawled out of two windows on the driver’s side of the cab and then across the slanted side of the truck to safety.

The passenger side of the cab was in Hunting Creek, at this point about six feet wide, and the rest of the fire truck was on the creek bank on the side of the creek closest to Quarry Road and N.C. 115.

Brooks said the fire truck, fully loaded with water and weighing about 30,000 pounds, likely was a total loss but is covered by insurance.

Firefighters were trying to reach the old Rufus Transeau home place, which caught fire from embers in a wood stove and burned to the ground, when the 40-foot-long bridge gave way.

Brooks said fire hoses were extended several hundred feet to the house from fire trucks that had to remain on the other side of the creek after the bridge collapsed.

The fire was reported by Carol Transeau, who lives near and on the same side of Hunting Creek as the old Rufus Transeau home. She said her immediate fear was that Jackie Transeau and Bennie Transeau, who lived in the house and are brothers of her husband, Bill Transeau, were still inside the burning structure. She soon learned that they had gotten out safely.

Carol Transeau said she was on the phone with the Wilkes Communications Center when she saw the fire truck flip over into the creek and reported this to a dispatcher.