First, is was a beautiful day for biking. Cool
weather, some sun and some beautiful scenery,
especially of Mt. Hood. We traveled 75 miles. The
first 40 were flat and the next 35 had some
challenging climbs.
About 30 miles into the day we were biking along a
bike path that goes between the Interstate highway and
the Columbia River. These border the Portland airport.
Suddenly, immediately in front of us, a small pickup
truck veered off the highway down an embankment,
across the bike path, down another embankment and into
the Columbia River. The truck was floating nose down
in the water and the driver was trying to get out
through the rear window. He was calling for help when
the truck sank with the driver still inside. 911 was
called, police, a rescue team and rescue boats
arrived. After about 20 minutes, divers located driver
and pulled him out of the water. They were able to
resuscitate him enough to get a pulse but he is in
extremely critical condition and not breathing on his
own.
Marie actually saw the whole incident. Even though I
was ahead of her, I was looking down and only saw the
man trying to get out of the truck and screaming for
help. There was absolutely nothing anyone could do. If
anyone had entered the water they probably would have
also drowned.
The police retained us at the scene to get eyewitness
reports. The media showed up.
It was a shocking and sobering experience. The feeling
of helplessness in an event like that is awful.
The rest of the day went fine. We bike 65 miles
tomorrow with some serious climbing early in the ride.
We certainly hope that future updates will be less sensational.