First Responders

Idaho Rescue Teams Pull Couple From Truck Dangling Above Gorge

March 18, 2021Matt White
Photo courtesy St. Luke’s Health, Idaho State Patrol, and Chief Brandon Covey.

Photo courtesy St. Luke’s Health, Idaho State Patrol, and Chief Brandon Covey.

Highly trained mountain rescue paramedics from around southern Idaho leaped into trucks, cars, and even a helicopter to retrieve a couple — and their two dogs — from the cab of a pickup truck dangling from a highway bridge over a mountain canyon Monday. The man and woman inside, both in their 60s, were pinned by their own seatbelts and helpless to escape as their truck hung from a single safety chain above a 100-foot plunge.


After hitching a ride on a helicopter normally used for transporting critical patients, specially trained paramedics from the Twin Falls-based Magic Valley Special Operations and Rescue Team, or SORT, rappelled to the truck and brought both passengers and their dogs to safety.


[vimeo id=”524459300″ /]


“The truck was trying to pass somebody and they had bounced off one railing and went over the other side,” Brandon Covey, the fire chief of the Gooding City Rural Fire Department told Coffee or Die Magazine. “They were just dangling.”


Initially, Covey said, the 2004 four-door Ford F-350 — a truck that used-car databases list as weighing at least 6,000 pounds — hung like a pendulum over the Malad River gorge, 100 feet below and about 30 miles north of Twin Falls.


Photo courtesy of St. Luke’s Health, Idaho State Patrol, and Chief Brandon Covey.

According to Idaho State Police, one of its officers and a Gooding County sheriff’s deputy arrived within minutes of the crash and immediately secured the truck with towing chains from a passing 18-wheeler. The officers were also able to yell to the couple in the truck. The man, 67, and woman, 63, said they were alert and largely unhurt, as were their two Shih Tzu dogs. Police said the couple lives in Garden City, near Boise. Though both were secure in seatbelts, the man driving said the position of the belt was making it hard to breathe.


“He was being choked out by his seatbelt,” Covey said.


Photo courtesy of St. Luke’s Health, Idaho State Patrol, and Chief Brandon Covey.

But getting the couple and their dogs out would take more than just a few strong chains and heavy anchors. SORT teams from both Gooding and Twin Falls soon arrived and began setting up the complicated rope systems needed to lower paramedics to the cab. The Twin Falls team is one of the most active backcountry rescue squads in the West, with frequent high-angle rescues in the high canyons around the Snake River. A team spokesperson said the squad trains at least twice every month, and Monday’s rescue was its sixth callout of 2021.


Covey said Gooding’s SORT team is modeled on Magic Valley’s and just took over local search and rescue duties recently in its area from a volunteer organization. The bridge rescue represented that team’s very first real-world rescue.


Photo courtesy of St. Luke’s Health, Idaho State Patrol, and Chief Brandon Covey.

The Magic Valley team deploys so frequently that it has a standing agreement with Air St. Luke’s, a hospital-based aeromedical service. Jumping on the helicopter, said one official, gave the team “an ETA of five minutes rather than 40.”


Aiding the response was a lucky break of the Malad Gorge’s topography: Though the truck hung over a 100-foot drop, its cab was nearly within arm’s reach of the canyon’s top ledge, thanks to the gorge’s essentially vertical walls. Rather than pull the two occupants up and over the bridge’s railing — a tricky fight against angles, leverage, and gravity — rescuers were able to swing the couple, one at time, over to the ledge, where other rescuers waited to haul them to solid ground.



First, though, came the couple’s Shih Tzus, said Covey: “They put them in a duffel bag and got them out first.”


The male driver was transported to the hospital due to his breathing complaints, Covey said, while his female passenger did not require treatment. The dogs were delivered to the nearby home of a relative.


“It shows what all agencies can do working together,” said Chad Smith, field supervisor for the Magic Valley SORT. “It was a team effort.”


Read Next: World War II Aircraft Nails Perfect Ditching Near Space Force Base



Matt White
Matt White

Matt White is a former senior editor for Coffee or Die Magazine. He was a pararescueman in the Air Force and the Alaska Air National Guard for eight years and has more than a decade of experience in daily and magazine journalism.

More from Coffee or Die Magazine
father's day
Father’s Day Gift Guide: Don’t Disappoint Your Dad … Again

It’s less than two weeks until Father’s Day, and last-minute gifts for Dad are harder to come by tha...

space force
Air Force Picks Colorado For More Space Force Missions

The Air Force announced the permanent location for many more U.S. Space Force units Wednesday — and ...

Curtis LeMay
Curtis LeMay: The World War II General Who Firebombed Japan

Who exactly was Gen. Curtis LeMay? And how did he become the commander who razed more than 60 Japanese cities during World War II?

eric smith marine corps commandant nominee
Highly Decorated Marine Officer Nominated To Be Next Commandant

President Joe Biden has nominated a highly decorated Marine officer who has been involved in the transformation of the force to be the next Marine Corps commandant.

USS Arizona
Profile of a Ship: USS Arizona

When the USS Arizona sank, it took 1,177 crew members with it. Today it remains beneath the water as a memorial to all those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor.

b1 bombers bosnia
US Bombers Fly Over Bosnia in Sign of Support Amid Continued Secessionist Threats

A pair of U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers flew low over Sarajevo and several other Bosnian cities...

SR-71 Blackbird
SR-71 Blackbird: The Spy Plane That Could Outrun Missiles

Lockheed Martin’s SR-71 Blackbird was a government secret for years. Now retired, a newer version plans to take its place.

  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Careers
Contact Us
  • Request a Correction
  • Write for Us
  • General Inquiries
© 2023 Coffee or Die Magazine. All Rights Reserved