Fort Worth firefighters find 2 dead inside pickup truck pulled from Trinity River
Two people were found dead inside of a pickup truck that was pulled from the Trinity River early Friday after a civilian and several firefighters were unable to get to the vehicle, authorities said.
The victims’ identities weren’t released. Witnesses reported they believed the truck went into the water after it was racing, according to Tracy Carter, a Fort Worth police spokesman.
A heavy-duty wrecker tow truck lifted the large dually truck out of the water Friday morning, police said. Mike Drivdahl, a Fort Worth Fire Department spokesman, said firefighters responded around 2:30 a.m. Friday to a report of a vehicle that left the roadway and went into the river. The truck, he said, was underneath the North University Bridge in the 600 block of North University Drive.
When firefighters arrived, a man was in the river, trying to find the location of the truck, Drivdahl said. They had to pull him from the water, he said, and he was exhausted and experiencing hypothermic conditions.
MedStar medics treated him for hypothermia and gave him their own dry clothes, according to a MedStar spokesman. He didn’t need to be transported to the hospital.
Firefighters did a preliminary search of the water, Drivdahl said, but were unable to get to the vehicle, at which point a dive team made up of four people went into the water. They became confident, with the passing time, that it would be a recovery operation, not a rescue, he said.
Roughly an hour and a half after firefighters first arrived, a wrecker tow truck with a large crane pulled the pickup truck from the water, Drivdahl said. Photos from Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV (Channel 8) show the pickup with long wires attached to it slowly emerging from the water next to a concrete wall.
“With the assistance of a large wrecking truck,” Drivdahl said, “(firefighters) were able to hook it up to the crane.”
WFAA-TV reported a passerby had seen the truck go off of the North University Bridge and called 911.
The incident is under investigation, Carter said.
He said police couldn’t provide any information at this time on what led to the truck going into the river.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 8:31 AM.
