Semi driver in Louisville bridge crash speaks out months later

The semi-truck driver who spent nearly an hour dangling over the Ohio River after a serious crash said it’s still hard to look at the bridge a little over two months after her dramatic rescue.

“This is the closest I’ve been,” Sydney Thomas told WHAS11 in her first interview since the incident that made national headlines.

“Sometimes you pray, and I’m guilty of this, I pray, and I don’t think God is listening,” she said, wiping tears from her face as she recalled the harrowing experience. “But he was that day.”

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Thomas, 26, has spent the last few months healing with the help of her family and 5-year-old son, Mason. Her father, Marc Thomas, a longtime semi-truck driver himself, said God was absolutely watching over his daughter that day.

“It didn’t really hit me until I looked over to my right [while crossing the Kennedy Bridge] and I’d seen that equipment hanging into the air,” her father said. “That [rescue] was nothing but God displaying himself to me.”

The closest Thomas has been to the bridge since the accident was during her interview with WHAS11 on May 13.

“It’s kind of hard to look at, but I’m not there,” she said, standing along the Waterfront. “I’m here.”

Thomas plans to go back to work for Sysco on June 1, but she won’t be hopping into another semi immediately.

“It’s a hard job, but my coworkers are like family to me and I’m comfortable, and I know how to do my job,” she said. 

When she does get back behind the wheel, Thomas said she won’t be going across the Clark Memorial Bridge, also known as the Second Street Bridge, ever again. But nearly one month after the crash, she nearly did.

“I got in an Uber one day and he was about to go across [that bridge]. I said ‘No! You can’t do that,'” she said.

Thomas explained to the driver who she was and he asked, “That was you?” She said yes and the driver immediately turned around and took her over the nearby toll bridge.

Thomas was running late on her deliveries on March 1. She had been driving with Sysco for only two years. 

To get to her next stop on time, Thomas took a company-approved route over the Clark Memorial Bridge in downtown Louisville.

Lanes on the bridge, which connects Louisville to southern Indiana, are roughly 10.5 feet wide with no shoulders. There is little room for emergencies.

FOCUS: Despite averaging 1 accident every 4 days, state considers minimal changes to Clark Memorial Bridge

It would take mere seconds for Thomas’ life to forever change as she crossed the bridge that day.

Dashcam video from inside the semi’s cab showed a pickup truck swerve out of its lane to avoid hitting a stalled electric vehicle on the bridge and crash into Thomas. She said her truck’s steering went out and all she could do was brace herself.

“He took my suspension out, which meant it didn’t matter which way I turned my wheel,” she said. “I lost control, I held onto the wheel. I couldn’t swerve into the other lane.”

Thomas said truck drivers are taught to keep driving straight if they ever get into a crash.

“That’s what they tell you when you learn how to drive a truck,” she explained. “You just keep going straight. It doesn’t matter because if you turn off, you make it worse. You just take it head-on.”

With seconds to react, the truck plowed through the bridge railing and Thomas was left hanging nearly 100 feet over the Ohio River.

Her first thought looking down at the river was: “This is it.” 

“When I went through the railing, I was like, ‘Wow, this is a crazy way to die,’” she said. “I really thought I was going to die.”

As Thomas hung over the rushing water of the Ohio River, she began laying out her options, prepared to do whatever was necessary to survive. 

“Once it stopped, I just looked down,” she said. “I thought the trailer was still on the bridge.”

Thomas didn’t know most of the semi had already fallen off the bridge. 

“When it caught the bridge, I froze,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘If it starts going, you’re going to have to move fast. Unbuckle that seat belt, open that door and jump out because you’re going to drown.’”

Despite being unable to swim, Thomas said she wasn’t going to die sitting in the semi cab.

“I would rather drown trying to swim than be submerged underneath the water and not being able to get out,” she added.

Those moments were unimaginably difficult to reconcile with because she kept thinking of her 5-year-old son, Mason.

“It was really hard for me to think about leaving him behind on Earth,” Thomas said.

But as Thomas waited for the seemingly inevitable, she heard voices calling out from above: several drivers who had stopped after seeing the horrifying scene on the bridge.

“One man stayed with me the whole time and talked to me until firefighters came,” Thomas said.

As news of the terrifying crash spread across Louisville, Thomas said her friends and coworkers began calling her cell phone, which had fallen to the floor.

By this point though, her military training kicked in and she refused to move an inch. She said her hands were gripped to the steering wheel, her foot pressed against the air brake, for a long time.

Meanwhile on top of the bridge, dozens of first responders were working to get Thomas out of the cab. The plan was to send one person down using a large crane, extended over the edge of the bridge, to grab Thomas and bring her back up.

Thomas spent 40 minutes dangling over the river before Louisville firefighter Bryce Carden appeared in her driver’s side window. 

“He was like, ‘Are you a praying woman?’” she said. “And we just started praying.”

Carden and Thomas prayed for safety, prayed to get back on the ground and out of harm’s way.

“I just kept crying out to God, ‘Please Lord, just give me another chance,’” Thomas said.

What unfolded next would be seen by millions of people across the world.

After 40 minutes suspended over the Ohio River, Thomas finally took her foot off the brake, but one of the most terrifying moments of the rescue couldn’t be seen on camera.

“[The truck] let out a loud bang,” she said, adding that Carden continued to comfort her. “He was trying to make sure I’d stay calm, and I didn’t start doing anything that would compromise our safety.”

Carden chose not to open the truck’s door. Instead, he pulled Thomas through the window.

WATCH THE FULL RESCUE BELOW:

Firefighters above lowered a harness for her to put on and Carden cut off her seatbelt. The pair then began the slow, five-minute rise back up to the bridge.

“I knew I wouldn’t fall out of the harness,” Thomas recalled. “I knew I wasn’t going to fall out, but it was terrifying to be that high up in the air and all you see is the Ohio River. It was hard, so I tried to keep my head up and not look down.”

After a few minutes of swaying in the sky, both were able to safely get back on to the bridge.

In the months of healing after the terrifying crash, Thomas has reunited with Carden to thank him.

“He is a really kind person and brave, I wouldn’t have been able to do that,” she said. “I admire him a lot, and I appreciate him and his wife are very kind people.”

She said there are still moments where it’s difficult, the anxiety, the fear, it all comes rushing back.

“I have my moments, but God has me here for a reason,” she said. “I have to fulfill my purpose in life, and I can’t let something like that stop me from doing what I’m supposed to be doing for Him. He brought me out it, He doesn’t want me to live in fear the rest of my life, and I know that.”

Louisville Metro Police have charged the pickup truck driver, 33-year-old Trevor Branham, in the crash. Witnesses told police he was weaving in and out of traffic prior to the accident.

Branham is facing several counts of wanton endangerment and is charged with driving on a suspended license. 

Despite the trauma she experienced, Thomas said she forgives Branham but believes the charges against him are fair.

“I can’t hold no hate in my heart,” she said. “We all make mistakes and me holding a grudge or being angry for the rest of my life at him is going to do nothing for me.”

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