Truck driver Scott Barber was hauling his fourth load of gravel across the Imperial Road bridge Friday when he heard a loud crash.

Barber, 27, was halfway across the two-lane bridge when a section of the span collapsed into Catfish Creek.

“It snapped behind me and I slid back down,” he said. “I heard a loud crash.

“The next thing I know, I’m in the water.”

The tail end of Barber’s dump truck ended up submerged in the fast-flowing water, while the cab was wedged at a 45-degree angle on a broken section of the bridge.

Without a safe way to escape, Barber decided to sit tight until emergency responders arrived.

Kevin Rouse was in the garage of his Dexter Line home, about 200 metres from the bridge, talking to his insurance broker on the phone when he noticed the dump truck crossing the bridge about 12:45 p.m.



Collapsed bridge in the flood-hit Elgin County community of Port Bruce. (DEREK RUTTAN, The London Free Press)

Rouse, who’d noticed the truck multiple times throughout the day, said he watched as the bridge broke in the middle.

The collapsed sections, combined with the weight of the truck, sent a massive wave roaring down the creek in both directions, he said.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. That was crazy,” said Rouse, who sprang into action.

“I phoned 911, went over and yelled at the truck driver, ‘Are you alright?’ ”

It wasn’t long before Malahide firefighters arrived on the scene. Three boarded an inflatable dinghy and paddled toward the partly submerged truck.

One firefighter crawled up the back of the truck to the cab, where Barber climbed out and was fitted with an insulated water suit before he was loaded into the rescue boat.

Barber, who wasn’t injured in the close call, surveyed the wreckage while he waited for his employer, Thorndale-based Ron Jones Construction, to send someone to pick him up.

Though he never feared for his life during the ordeal, the trucker with eight years experience said he was relieved when the firefighters brought him to shore.

“It was good to see dry land,” he said.

For many Port Bruce residents who flocked to the scene to watch the dramatic rescue, it seemed a miracle that the day hadn’t ended in tragedy.

“Nobody was on that bridge except that dump truck,” Rouse said. “It’s amazing that he (Barber) wasn’t hurt.”

It’s too soon to say what caused the bridge to collapse, officials said, but there’s speculation it was related to this week’s flooding. Heavy rains and melting snow left several streets in the Lake Erie community underwater on Tuesday, prompted the OPP to set up a command centre for a possible evacuation.

“We are still investigating what happened and whether it is flood-related,” Malahide Township Mayor David Mennill said, adding the bridge dates to the 1960s and has seen a lot of truck traffic over the decades. “There must have been a weakness in the structure.”

The bridge supports could have been stressed by the surging creek, Mennill said.

“There’s been more (water) discharged in the last few days than we have ever seen in Port Bruce, but it never came up to the bottom of the bridge.”

The loss of the main entrance into the lakeside community will force its roughly 200 year-round residents to take a five-kilometre detour.

“It’s a long way around. It’s the main way in and out,” Mennill said.

Police are urging the public to stay away from the area, though that didn’t stop cellphone-­wielding crowds from gathering at the bridge to pose for photos Friday.

There’s no timeline on when the structure will be repaired.

“This is not an overnight repair. This will take a long time,” Mennill said.

With files from Hank Daniszewski, The London Free Press