By Cara Chapman
Press-Republican
CHATEAUGAY, N.Y. — Rescue crews and State Police spent hours looking for the occupant of a pickup truck found submerged in the Chateaugay River by the bridge on Pulp Mill Road Friday.
Chateaugay Volunteer Fire Department was initially called out at 8:43 p.m.
That team requested mutual aid from Burke Fire along with advanced life support teams from Malone and Northern Ambulance, Chateaugay 1st Asst. Chief Matt Helm told the Press-Republican.
“We weren’t sure at the time how many patients we would have.”
NOBODY INSIDE
The top of a Ford F-150 was out of the water and visible, Helm said.
Once they arrived and saw what they were dealing with, Chateaugay’s crew called in the Franklin County Technical Rescue Team and divers from the Hogansburg-Akwesasne Volunteer Fire Department as well.
State Police who had reached the vehicle said nobody was inside.
“At that point we started searching the shoreline on both sides of the gorge,” Helm said, adding that the area has very steep walls and is not easily accessible.
OPERATIONS SUSPENDED
The crews and police searched extensively for the occupant, and Franklin County’s light towers lit up the area.
“The swiftwater team made contact with the vehicle, and searched around the vehicle for the patient,” Helm said.
At around 1:30 a.m., operations were suspended for the night, since it was getting too dangerous to work safely.
State Police remained on the bridge while everyone else went back in service.
But at 2:04 a.m., Chateaugay Fire was called back.
The truck’s occupant, identified in a State Police blotter entry as 32-year-old Jeffrey L. Beach of Chateaugay, had walked to where State Police were on the bridge, Helm said.
CHEST PAIN
The Chateaugay ambulance brought Beach to Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone, picking up Malone EMS on the way to the hospital, the assistant chief said.
Beach reportedly told State Police that he was driving on Pulp Mill Road when, trying to avoid an uninvolved vehicle, he left the road off the north shoulder.
His truck hit a mailbox at 31 Pulp Mill Road, near the intersection with LaPlant Road, then went over the earth embankment and struck the bridge there, State Police said.
He got out of the vehicle before responders arrived.
State Police said Beach sustained chest pain in the accident, and guessed that it’s about a 46-foot drop into that part of the river.
The Town of Chateaugay put big fences up when it redid the bridge to prevent people from jumping off it into the water, State Police added.
UNDER INVESTIGATION
Helm explained that the gap over the river at that point is about 80 to 100 feet across.
He guessed that the truck, traveling airborne, made it to the halfway point.
Chateaugay Fire, Technical Rescue Team members, Franklin County coordinators, State Police and Smith’s 24-hour Towing Service, with a crane, went back around 6 a.m. to get the truck out of the river.
“The swiftwater guys hooked up the vehicle with cables, and the crane pulled the truck back out and placed it on the bridge,” Helm said.
New York State Electric and Gas cut power to the lines above the area so the responders would not have any issues during that process.
It was confirmed by Beach and his family that no one else was in the vehicle, Helm said.
State Police continue to investigate the crash.
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