Woman hit by tractor trailer and survives 40 foot plunge off a massive bridge
By Barry Burch, Jr.
A car plunged 40 feet off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge last Friday night, and the driver is a survivor. Morgan Lake, 22, was hit from behind by a tractor trailer in Stevensville, Maryland while attempting to cross the steep bridge.
“It was a huge truck. All I saw was the nose of it coming to me full speed. I thought I was going to die,” Lake stated in an interview regarding the accident.
Thankfully, Lake had her seat belt fastened and is also a fitness instructor who can swim. However, the impact of the water still felt like hitting concrete she said. “I just knew I was going to die. I was going down,” she mustered while trying to hold back tears. “I didn’t want to go out that way.”
Lake didn’t go out that way. She is actually out of the hospital with a sprained ankle, elbow and some cuts from the shattered glass, which led to her escape. Because the impact of her car hitting the water from 40 feet above caused her driver’s side window to shatter, Lake was able to climb through and swim her way to the top.
“I swam, swam, swam and swam. As soon as my lips got out of that water, I just took five really deep breaths and gasped for air.”
When she finally made it to the top, Lake says she yelled for someone to call her mother and a civilian did so.
Lake bravely professed that she would drive the bridge again in the future when asked, but admitted that it would be “no time soon.”
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is one of scariest in all of America. There was once a time when police would offer to take drivers across the bridge if they were too afraid to do it themselves.
Although Lake’s car plunged 40 feet, at the bridge’s highest point, it is more than 180 feet above the bay below.
No charges have been filed, but the investigation continues.
