Star Tribune
Motorist slides down snowy embankment, rescues truck driver who crashed into icy west metro river
A motorist dashed out of his warm pickup truck on a west metro highway into the bone-chilling cold Monday afternoon, did a “baseball slide” down a snowy embankment to rescue a driver whose box truck plunged into the icy Crow River.
The spontaneous drama unfolded on and beneath Hwy. 101 in Rogers, the State Patrol said.
Patrol Lt. Jill Frankfurth said the 25-year-old truck driver was heading north on Hwy. 101 about 3:15 p.m. when he “struck the right guardrail and sign, veered to the left, striking the left guardrail and launching down into the river.”
Frankfurth described a 46-year-old man from Otsego as “a good Samaritan [who] assisted the male driver out of the vehicle.”
The National Weather Service said the air temperature was 0 degrees at that time in western Hennepin County.
Christopher Kirk was the first of several vehicle occupants who parked on the shoulders and clambered down toward the river in an effort to help James Nahl, of Fridley, whose vehicle landed on its wheels with the cab only partly above the surface.
Kirk said Tuesday he was in his pickup when he saw the box truck “launch straight up into the air” and over the railing. He called 911, then “did a baseball slide on the snow and everything. Running down there would have been kind of dumb.”
He arrived to see the driver pinned in the cab with his seat belt still on.
“His left shoulder and heard were in the water,” Kirk recalled, giving little thought to his own well-being. “I saw someone who was on the border or the edge of dying. … I’m just gonna help get this guy out.”
Standing up to his waist in the frigid water, Kirk felt the current moving as he saw the driver “facing to the right to get his mouth out of the water.”
Kirk said that with what strength he had, combined with what the driver could muster, “we were able to get him onto the flatbed” behind the cab, now exposed with the box gone from the impact.
“I asked him if he was OK,” Kirk said. Once getting an affirmative response, Kirk recalled saying, ” ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ “
As the two started their ascent, other good Samaritans had made their way down and helped the driver back to the highway.
Nahl, his vehicle’s only occupant, was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of what the lieutenant described as minor injuries, the patrol said.
A trooper asked Kirk to stay at the scene. “I said that’s fine,” Kirk said, but I’m going to wait in my truck. I turned up the butt warmers and turned up the heat.”
Kirk said that when he relayed what happened to his wife, “she says I deserve an award for being a hero and deserve an award for being an idiot. … I’m not a great swimmer.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
