He thinks he's SUPERMAN! ha ha ha! =)

Friday, August 18, 2006

Vehicle rams into bridge; 3 hurt
By Danilo V. Adorador III

A CAR jumps out of the bridge, flying mid-air then angling for a nosedive plunge below the waiting river.

The incident occurred early morning Thursday when a pick-up type car rammed into the steel railings at the middle of  Marcos Bridge and plunged deep into the river.

Police said the car, a white Isuzo Fuego, was avoiding a damaged passenger multicab involved in an earlier accident, and swerved right onto the railings, destroying the steel barriers and falling into the river.

Some male residents near the riverbank who witnessed the incident immediately headed to waters and assisted the three car passengers to get out of the drowning car.

"We were about to sleep but we heard a big splash of water so we went out. There we saw a white pick-up and its passengers swimming out of the car and we helped them," said 31-year-old Lito Alcuaz, one of the men who helped rescue the car occupants.

The car passengers sustained injuries and was brought immediately to the hospital, said PO3 Lito Tizon, Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) investigator who responded to the incident.

They were identified as Alfonso Marquez, a resident of Barangay Camaman-an, Mae Ann Dangcal from Barangay Iponan and car-driver Ansel Bryan S. Barba, a resident of P.N. Roa subdivision, Barangay Canitoan.

Based on the initial investigation, Tizon said the victims were heading toward the west portion of the city when they met the accident at around 1:30 a.m.

Tizon said it was possible that the victims' car had over speeded, causing it to lose balance when it tried to evade from the immobilized vehicle halfway though the bridge.

The possibility that the driver was drunk was still a subject for further investigation, the traffic investigator said.

Tizon said the incident revealed that the bridge's railings are not durable enough to absorb vehicular impact.

He said the accident was the first of its kind in any of the city's bridges.

RTA said the car was still drifting in the river as of Thursday afternoon. (With a report from Sun.Star SuperBalita)