VIDEO: This morning Omaha firefighters made a daring rescue. The men and women of the Omaha Fire Department put in hours and hours of training. Once again, that training paid off, and the rescue had nothing to do with a burning building.
At 8:42 a.m., OFD answers a call, this time on the Bob Kerrey Bridge high above the Missouri River. “As they approached that person that was on the bridge crawled down and was hanging by his hands from the girder outside of the safety rail of the bridge,” said Battalion Chief Kurt Theiler.
Close to a dozen firefighters answered the call, all trained to handle this exact situation. “Within the last few years due to the increase of people that are on the bridge threatening to jump, there’s been a lot more training specifically for these guys at the downtown station.”
Firefighter Chris Luehring was the first guy over. He made contact with the individual. “He was very sporadic. He wasn’t all with it mentally at the time. He’d also been hanging for awhile so who know what mental state he was in at the time,” Luehring said.
“While he was making that contact, firefighters on his rig were getting into harnesses and some fall protection gear. Another driver on that rig was tying off, so in the event that they needed to react quickly, they get over and maybe assist the party,” Theiler said.
