An Indian American state senator had a near miss in a deadly bridge collapse in Minnesota on Wednesday evening.
Emergency teams were searching for bodies on Thursday morning, a day after a major bridge over the Mississippi collapsed during rush hour killing at least seven persons.
The I-35W bridge, which connects Minneapolis with it’s twin city of St. Paul, crumbled during the rush hour on Wednesday evening sending vehicles, concrete and steel into the mighty Mississippi.
Dozens of people were reported to be hurt. A freight train passing underneath was crushed as a span of steel and concrete collapsed.
“At this point we have seven confirmed fatalities, and we expect that the number to go up,” fire chief Jim Clack told reporters.
A mildly shaken Satveer Chaudhary, Minnesota’s Indian American state senator, said he had crossed the I-35W bridge only minutes before its total collapse early Wednesday evening.
Shortly after learning of the tragedy, Chaudhary took his own boat back to the river for any potential rescue needs. “I’m still in some mild shock at how close it was,” he said. “Ironically, I was on the way back from a funeral and hit some of the bumper to bumper traffic that the bridge was experiencing. When I got home I turned on the news and that was when the first report came out. I just felt stunned.”
After an half hour of watching the devastation on the news, Chaudhary and his wife Dee (who has limited medical training) decided to volunteer their boat for rescue efforts. “I saw a kayak on TV attempting a rescue. So I guess, feeling connected to the incident, I didn’t want to find
out later they needed boats. It took quite a while to find the right area, but all first-responders we encountered along the way appeared in control and busy with some important task.
Once we arrived at the staging area there was clearly plenty of help from communities all over the state, albeit some officers appeared frustrated with not being able to move to the water. I felt better about trying at least,” he said.
Before leaving the scene, however, Chaudhary lent a ride to a young man back to his car who had just finished volunteering his diving experience immediately after the bridge collapsed.
Chaudhary shared his discussion with the diver. “The scene this young man described was horrific. He talked about, coincidentally, having his diving gear in his trunk while on a construction job near the sight.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty described it as a “catastrophe of historic proportions.” He said the bridge, which was built in 1967, last inspected in 2006 and no significant structural problems were found. Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, ruled out terrorism as a cause for the collapse.
