Lorry cab plunges off bridge and leaves driver missing

A lorry cab crashed through a concrete barrier on a bridge and plunged into the water, and the driver is missing.

The cab, which was not hooked onto a trailer, was going south on Interstate 295 on the Delaware Memorial Bridge around 3.40am on Friday when it crossed three lanes of traffic and smashed through the barrier, officials said.

It fell into the Delaware River, and left a massive gap on the bridge.

Search crews found the cab roughly 20 feet underwater a few hours later.

The driver remains missing, and is presumed dead.

TJ Murray of the Delaware River and Bay Authority could not recall an incident like it happening on the bridge in the past three decades. 

‘From what I understand from communications today, no one remembers any kind of vehicle going over the side of the bridge,’ Murray told WPVI.

The cab did not strike any other vehicle. The driver’s identity and if anyone else was inside the cab were not immediately known.

A contractor working on the bridge, which connects Delaware and New Jersey, lent a barge to the authority to help recover the cab from the water.

But efforts to retrieve the vehicle were suspended at 4.30pm and are set to restart at 6am on Saturday.

The accident is under investigation.

Southbound lanes were closed for hours but reopened to traffic by the afternoon.

The authority placed a maintenance vehicle on a concrete pad near the crumbled section of the bridge barrier for the time being.

It happened more than four months after a lorry driver was rescued from a truck that crashed through the guardrail of the Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky, as he hung over the Ohio River.

Footage from the scene showed a first responder hooked on a crane and getting lowered to the cab and pulling the lucky driver out.

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