Very lucky pedestrian

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Thu 28 Jan 2010 19:14
Very lucky pedestrian - nick62
news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8480000/newsid_8...m

Have a look at the guy at top left, just about to cross the footbridge!
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Thu 28 Jan 2010 19:19
Very lucky pedestrian - scrapmetal
Also how the lorry cab lifts on impact
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Thu 28 Jan 2010 19:21
Very lucky pedestrian - SteelSpark
Lucky yes, but he did seem to see it coming and stopped, otherwise it would have hit him straight on, so a lot of luck and a bit of judgement.

Took me back 19 years to a briefing during the first Gulf War when footage of bombing raids on the news was a nightly occurrence. The presenter (not sure if it was Norman Schwarzkopf) declared a car driver as the luckiest driver in Iraq as his car passed through a set of bomber crosshairs targeted on a bridge, he just got clear of the bridge as the bomb hit.
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Thu 28 Jan 2010 19:50
Very lucky pedestrian - sporty
Took me back 19 years to a briefing during the first Gulf War when footage
of bombing raids on the news was a nightly occurrence. The presenter (not sure if
it was Norman Schwarzkopf) declared a car driver as the luckiest driver in Iraq as
his car passed through a set of bomber crosshairs targeted on a bridge he just
got clear of the bridge as the bomb hit.


I remember that too - although I thought it was a motorcyclist. As for the lorry hitting a bridge - any ideas where that happened?
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Thu 28 Jan 2010 20:14
Very lucky pedestrian - oilrag
Amazing he survived that. He had time to run back past the bridge support though...

Edited by oilrag on 28/01/2010 at 20:16

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Thu 28 Jan 2010 21:31
Very lucky pedestrian - SteelSpark
I remember that too - although I thought it was a motorcyclist. As for the
lorry hitting a bridge - any ideas where that happened?


Yeah, could well have been. I found a video of it here:

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7556724140556907...#

Although the sound quality is terrible.

Ah, to be young again, when war was a thing of wonder (if you were 3,000 miles away, watching it on TV)...rather than a tragic waste of life...
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Thu 28 Jan 2010 22:13
Very lucky pedestrian - 1400ted
This happened in the 80s on the M62 in North Manchester. The bridge was basically the same.
A mobile crane driver in a single cab was carrying his two children in the crane cab, above and behind him. Somehow they got the jib to lift and it swept the westbound span of the footbridge off it's mountings.
The span, 4 lanes wide, landed on the cab and killed the father.
The Turkish one seems to have disintigrated on impact........sub-standard concrete ?

Older members may remember seeing half a bridge for years afterwards, it was just west of the Rochdale gate, IIRC.

Ted
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Thu 28 Jan 2010 22:22
Very lucky pedestrian - 1400ted
I think this is where the M62 incident took place.

tinyurl.com/yj2vpro

Ted
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Thu 28 Jan 2010 22:25
Very lucky pedestrian - old crocks
>>The Turkish one seems to have disintigrated on impact........sub-standard concrete ?

Looks to me like a lightweight steel bridge. It didn't stand a chance against again that truck. The snow? falling off the roof of the bridge rather clouds how it actually failed.
There could have been a thin concrete deck supported of the steel but that isn't designed for heavy impact either.
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