A truck driver was saved after his semi-truck was involved in a crash in McKinney, Texas, and his truck was left hanging off the overpass.
MCKINNEY, Texas — From the air, it stole your breath. Below — a tow truck barely clinging to the southbound concrete barrier of the Sam Rayburn Tollway after a crash near Hardin Boulevard.
McKinney firefighters sprinted to save 32-year-old Martin Briones-Vazquez before gravity did.
A week later, Briones-Vazquez returned to the McKinney fire station with his wife and children to thank the first responders who saved his life.
"He and his family expressed their gratitude by bringing lunch as a token of appreciation — a reminder that behind every call, there are lives, families, and stories that stay with us long after the sirens fade," the McKinney Fire Department wrote in a social media post, sharing the photo Briones-Vazquez took with the men who rescued him from the truck.
As crews were working to rescue him, Briones-Vazquez's brother, Oscar Vazquez, was still on the way when the call came in from family. “She called me on the way here,” Oscar said. “It’s a little worse than we thought. He’s hanging off a bridge.”
“Hanging off a bridge doesn’t sound good at all, right?”
Texas DPS said Briones-Vazquez was hauling two vehicles on a flatbed trailer when he came upon a disabled car in the roadway. He swerved to avoid a collision but struck the stalled vehicle and the concrete barrier — leaving his cab hanging over the edge.
From Chopper 8, the view was harrowing — the truck’s cab suspended high above Highway 121 as crews positioned their ladder truck beneath it.
“For us, having a semi hanging off of Sam Rayburn is not a normal day on the job,” said Luis Aguilar with McKinney Fire Department. “What ended up happening is Truck 1 put their ladder right under the semi--then crews broke the glass from the cab, and then just had him come out through there.”
Moments later, firefighters pulled Briones-Vazquez to safety — free, and more importantly, alive.
“The only thing between him and the ground,” Oscar said, “was a piece of glass — the windshield.”
Amazingly, Aguilar said the driver suffered just a cut on the head and didn’t initially want to be taken to the hospital, but was taken out of caution. The other driver — whose car had stalled — was also transported with non-life-threatening injuries.
"To the driver and his family — thank you for allowing us to be part of your story. And to all our crews — thank you for answering the call, every time," the department wrote in a social media post a week later.
All southbound lanes of Sam Rayburn Tollway at Hardin Boulevard were shut down for hours on Wednesday afternoon, with two northbound lanes also closed, according to the North Texas Tollway Authority. Traffic has since resumed normal flows.
Oscar says his brother turns 33 later this week. “For him to walk off with a scratch on his head — it’s a miracle,” he said.
After a moment like this, there’s a little more to celebrate.
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