{"id":2749,"date":"2026-06-13T18:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edmpackz.com\/?p=2749"},"modified":"2026-06-13T18:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:04:08","slug":"for-many-i-35w-bridge-collapse-was-near-miss-or-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edmpackz.com\/?p=2749","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0 For many, I-35W bridge collapse was near-miss or tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Survivors describe a crack, then screams<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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\"Rescue<\/div>
Rescue crews work in the water alongside sections of the Interstate 35W bridge, which stretches between Minneapolis and St. Paul, after it collapsed on Aug. 1, 2007, into the Mississippi River. (Sherri LaRose-Chiglo \/ Pioneer Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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By\u00a0Pioneer Press<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0news@pioneerpress.com<\/a>\u00a0| Pioneer Press<\/div>\n
PUBLISHED:\u00a0
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Getting your\u00a0Trinity Audio<\/a>\u00a0player ready…<\/strong><\/div>\n
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A shock at the edge of rush hour. Cars stuck, bumper to bumper, on a bridge over the Mississippi River. Nowhere to go. Then a violent shudder of twisting metal. The unthinkable: The bottom drops.<\/p>\n

It started as typical rush-hour traffic. Aron Dahlgren, of Minneapolis, was inching south on Interstate 35W, heading through Minneapolis to see his girlfriend.<\/p>\n

Then he noticed the road signs over the freeway were collapsing.<\/p>\n

\u201cDust was coming up behind them as well. And then I felt a rumble \u2014 I felt the bridge just go,\u201d he said Wednesday, standing outside a lobby at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, his name on a wristband and a label stuck to his T-shirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bridge broke right behind my front tire and my pickup fell down probably about 10 or 15 feet on the concrete below. I landed with my engine hitting the ground first, and my truck flipped over and landed on the hood. I was in my seatbelt, my window shattered and my first instinct was just to get out of there. I got cuts on my hands and my knees from the glass getting out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI checked the person whose car I landed on. She was all right. She was getting out. There was another car next to us, he was getting out as well, and we just got off the bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and the others fled as the odor of spilling gasoline and dust drifted over the scene.<\/p>\n

Scores of victims, witnesses and those on the scene minutes later bore a terrifying testimony to the collapse of the I-35W bridge. Some rushed into the chaos to save the trapped and injured. Many hearts sank when they saw a school bus among the rubble.<\/p>\n

\u2018I SAW DUST EVERYWHERE\u2019<\/h4>\n

Jeisy Aguica, 13, was on that bus, one of about 60 children and staff from the Waite Home Community Center traveling south on the bridge after a visit to a water park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw dust everywhere, and people were crying,\u201d Jeisy said. \u201cWe were close (to getting over the bridge), and then we all went down. It felt scary. I had a little kid next to me. They opened the back door to the emergency exit, and we all got out. Some people were crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials said all the kids got out; about 10 were taken to hospitals, two with injuries described as more severe.<\/p>\n

The stories of survival were plenty.<\/p>\n

Shiraz Din and his girlfriend, Tina Nguyen, were on their way to their new house in Eagan when the southbound lanes of I-35W fell out from under them. Their car plummeted into the Mississippi, five stories below.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went straight down, nose forward, and hit another car going down,\u201d recalled Din.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just was just trying to get out. Just trying to get out of the water and get my girlfriend out of the water and get on top of the car before anything else happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Din crawled out his window \u2014 the driver\u2019s-side door was still out of the water \u2014 then reached in and dragged Nguyen out of their wrecked Toyota. The two picked their way across the wreckage and walked up the riverbank.<\/p>\n

He looked around at the wreckage and saw injured people around him, others running across the rubble, screaming. \u201cThere was, like, 10, 10 or 15 cars down there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne Nicolai, who lives in Bloomington, was driving north along the highway, late to dinner with friends in the Seven Corners area of Minneapolis when, she said, \u201cthe bridge collapsed right in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

With nowhere to move forward and acting on impulse and instinct, she whipped her SUV around to face oncoming traffic, ignored the horns of nearby cars and drove up a grassy embankment, finding her way onto a surface street and to safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought \u2018I need to get off this bridge \u2014 now,\u2019 \u201d she said. \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t running late, I\u2019d be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

DESPERATE FOR INFORMATION<\/h4>\n

As news of the accident spread, many people panicked when they couldn\u2019t reach loved ones they believed might have been caught up in the collapse.<\/p>\n

Kristi Foster, 27, of Minneapolis, and her mom, Leslie Foster, said they hadn\u2019t heard from Kristi\u2019s brother Kirkor his girlfriend, Krystle Webb, both 22. The couple lived together off 18th Street Northeast and Johnson Parkway in Minneapolis, near the bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at all the hangout spots, but they\u2019re not there. And they\u2019re not at my house,\u201d said Kristi Foster.
\nLeslie Foster said she planned to stay at the bridge all night if necessary. \u201cIt\u2019s devastating. I\u2019m not giving up on my son. We\u2019ve called everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kristi Foster said she hoped they weren\u2019t on the bridge. They travel it every day.<\/p>\n

Gina Gray was on the phone with her friend Jamecca Cohee after picking up Cohee\u2019s mother at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can hear something cracking,\u201d were the last words Cohee heard Gray say. Her phone then suddenly went dead.<\/p>\n

Gray and Cohee\u2019s mother were on the bridge, headed to Cohee\u2019s home in Minneapolis, when the bridge went into the water.<\/p>\n

Cohee and her 8-year-old daughter, Loyalty Cohee, spent Wednesday evening at Hennepin County Medical Center, looking for any information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Granny fell in \u2026 when the thing exploded,\u201d Loyalty said.<\/p>\n

Four hours after the collapse, they had learned nothing.<\/p>\n

Minutes after the bridge collapsed, friends Jeff Nelson and Allan Weinand of Minneapolis spotted the wreckage while driving along West River Parkway to the Metrodome to catch the Twins game. At first, Nelson thought a parking structure had collapsed. No police or paramedics had arrived yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it couldn\u2019t be the 35 bridge, but it was,\u201d he said. With the wreckage of cars and concrete, \u201cIt looked like a parking ramp had just slid right down\u201d into the water.<\/p>\n

Below, the friends saw stranded motorists standing on chunks of the bridge in the middle of the river, Nelson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were just shaking. They were coming out of their cars with their briefcases,\u201d Weinand said. \u201cThere were people with Twins T-shirts. You could just see the shock on their faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the women who escaped the wreckage got out of her car, clearly horrified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she realized what happened, she just lost it,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cShe was sobbing on her phone, and the enormity of it\u201d hit her.<\/p>\n

Staff writers Paul Tosto, Tim Nelson, Charley Walters, John Brewer, Mary Divine, Frederick Melo, Rick Alonzo, Laura Yuen, Richard Chin, Bao Ong, Emily Gurnon, Matt Peiken, Amy Carlson Gustafson, Alex Friedrich and Liala Helal contributed to this story<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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