VIDEO/PHOTOS: A man was rescued after being pinned underneath his truck in Mission Bay early Wednesday morning, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. The crash happened just before 7 a.m. on the bay-side of the San Diego Mission Bay Resort, Jeff Phillips, a battalion chief with SDFD, said. The driver appeared to have driven down the walking and biking path, then attempted to drive onto a short pier when the truck rolled onto its side. The truck came to a stop on its side after hitting the base of a short pier in Mission Bay. Apr. 16, 2025.
“It was super loud,” Laura Acosta, who was asleep in a nearby hotel room, told NBC 7. “Like a motor. Like a really loud motor, like ‘vroom, vroom’ revving, a motor revving,” she described. Acosta said her husband then pulled back their curtains and they noticed the truck, at the base of the pier, facing the bay, resting on the passenger side. The driver was stuck underneath the passenger window with his leg sticking through the windshield. Acosta added it felt, “like every first responder in the city of San Diego was here.”
The San Diego Police Department rushed to help the man alongside firefighters, including members of the SDFD technical rescue team and lifeguards, according to Phillips. First responders managed to stabilize the truck, which proved difficult since it was partially on sand, and pulled the man to safety. He appeared to have some injuries and was taken to the hospital. “They were frantically digging under the car,” Acosta said.
