When the call came over the Minneapolis police squad radios Wednesday that the Interstate 35W bridge had fallen into the Mississippi River, almost every responding officer assumed it was a false report.
Maybe, they thought, part of the road had buckled in the heat, or perhaps a car had gone into the water.
Sgt. Tim Hoeppner, one of a group of officers who shared their dramatic stories for the first time Friday, was one of the first to arrive. An unbelievable sight awaited him.
Smoke from burning vehicles and dust from crumbling concrete filled the air. People were struggling to get out of the river.
And there was death. One woman who had survived a long fall from the bridge got out of her car, only to be struck and killed by a large pole that fell off the bridge. Another person died in a car flattened by a large highway sign.
But on the heels of the shock and horror came waves of citizens, police officers and firefighters doing whatever they could to save lives.
One woman tore off her shirt to stop a victim's bleeding. Pieces of plywood were turned into makeshift stretchers to carry people away from the river.
In spots where ambulances hadn't yet arrived, pickup trucks were used to load victims up and drive them to the hospital.
One had been on the job for only six days. Another who had served in the military in Bosnia described the bridge scene as similar to some he saw repeatedly in that war-torn country.
"I haven't turned on a TV since this whole thing happened," Minneapolis officer Scott Downing said. "Then I run into some reporters from Japan, and I realized this is just not a Minnesota event."
Several described the disaster's aftermath as controlled chaos, with things moving in slow motion. Nine hours would pass before they even looked at their watches.
University police officer Samuel Schooler rescued a man who then had a heart attack when he was put into the ambulance. Lacking a paramedic, Schooler performed CPR until they arrived at a hospital.
The man wasn't breathing, but Schooler helped unload him, cleaned out the back of the ambulance and headed back to the bridge.
He still doesn't know whether the man survived.
'You just respond'
At the river, Downing saw a burning bread delivery truck on fire. The cab was on fire and its doors were closed, and he saw there was nothing he could do there. He moved on to help others, staring up at the sky and wondering if two cars and pieces of steel hanging precariously over his head would fall.
And the bridge was making noises.
"You just respond," he said.
Downing was quickly joined by other officers such as Nick Torberg, who raced over from the city's North Side. A doctor who happened to be in the area evaluated the wounded in a makeshift triage unit.
"I felt lucky to be there," Torberg said. "Every cop wanted to be there, but some had to stay back in the precincts."
Officer Brian Thureson was off duty but couldn't stay away. He came upon the school bus trapped on a piece of fallen bridge, full of 60 terrified children.
A 5-year-old boy seeing his mom unconscious begged the paramedic to tell if she was going to die. "Being a parent, it just broke my heart," he said.
At the site, Hoeppner talked to construction workers who survived the fall. They had been doing repair work but expressed concern to him that the bridge had been wobbling several days before it collapsed. Every layer of concrete the workers removed, the bridge would wobble even more, they told Hoeppner.
Minneapolis officers and firefighters worked seamlessly with officers from other law enforcement agencies, rushing around to strewn bodies and vehicles.
Lt. Ed Frizell, who served seven months in Bosnia with the Minnesota National Guard, was gratified to see so many people who wanted to help the wounded. At similar scenarios in Bosnia, most just fled for their safety, he said.
"You had to walk away from some that couldn't be saved," he said about the Minneapolis disaster. "But it becomes about the living. This gave me a whole new perspective of September 11."
'We have a job to do'Cell phones didn't work, and many officers were in spots that didn't allow radio communication. Safety was an afterthought for officers. Schooler and University of Minnesota officer Tom Bohrer rode their motorcycles far onto the unstable fallen bridge.
Anna Hemmer, six days on the job, was working with her training partner, Jeff Boeltl. Her priority before they heard about the collapse was trying to get an incident report done correctly.
She came across a woman with a head injury who was obviously in critical condition. After a few minutes, Hemmer managed to get her name. The officer sat with her, repeatedly telling the woman "to stay with me."She kept wanting to tell me something, but I just told her an ambulance was on the way," she said.
Hemmer said she didn't want to say what message the injured woman was trying to pass on to her.
A graduate of the Police Academy, she will train on the streets for five more months. Even after experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime tragedy, she didn't hesitate to say she still has a lot to learn.
"It's good to have to go to work so I don't have to think about it over and over," Hemmer said. "But we have a job to do."
Hoeppner agreed, pleasantly surprised when a man in a suit came up to him the day after the collapse as he worked security around the bridge. The man thanked him for pulling him out of the river.
Hoeppner had no recollection of the man.
David Chanen • 612-673-4465 • dchanen@startribune.com
