The Night We Broke the Bridge 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
The Night We Broke the Bridge
(This story is true. The people involved are alive and can be contacted for verification. The Longmont Daily Times Call ran a picture of the accident. The trouble is, I don’t remember exactly when it happened. I want to say the fall of 1966.)
Growing up in the small Colorado town of Longmont in the 50’s and 60’s, there wasn’t a whole lot to do other than drag Main Street and drink beer.
Well, 4 of us decided to try the beer portion of the town’s entertainment possibilities. Since we were underage, we had to hang out at the local gas station, waiting for an older friend or sibling of a friend to purchase the beer for us. Finally, we saw a brother of a friend. After some bribes, we each secured a quart of Coors finest 3.2 beer. We proceeded to the countryside in Jim’s dads Chrysler New Yorker. Big V8 monster boat of a car. 4 teenagers and 4 quarts of beer, things were looking up.
Our only problem was that 2 friends in a tiny Carmen Gia knew of our plan and were attempting to foil our plot to drink the beer. They figured if they could follow us everywhere we went, we wouldn’t be able to stop and consume the malty beverage. So, hurtling down a paved country road at 70 miles per hour, Jim, the driver, spies a dirt road heading off to the left. He devised the soon to be disastrous plan. He sped forward past the dirt road and flipped a U-turn about 500 yard past it. Then we sped by our friends in the Gia, going the other way. They looked very baffled. His plan was to turn right onto the dirt road and loose them in its twists and turns.
One problem cropped up. About 100 yards down the dirt road was an old fashioned steel bridge over the St. Vrain River. The kind with the curved steel trestles. The huge bent beams were held in place by huge cement anchors on each side of the bridge. We managed to hit 60 miles an hour as we approached the bridge. Hitting the brakes at that speed on dirt means only one thing: the car skids to the right. The right front fender hits the cement anchor and put the car into a leftward skid into the middle of the bridge. We hit the center portion of the steel at maybe 40 MPH. The entire bridge collapsed and fell into the river.
The car was standing up on its left side, perfectly balanced and pinched between steel and the road portion of the bridge. No one was hurt and the beer didn’t break!!! As we crawled out of the windows, our friends came skidding to a halt at the edge of the used-to-be bridge. Screaming and shouting, “they knew this would happen, were we OK?” “Yes, we’re OK”, as we tossed the beer into the river. The farmer that lived on the other side of the bridge heard the commotion and came out to see what was going on. He yelled and severely cursed us out for being dumbass teenagers as now, instead of a 2-minute trip into the local town, he had to back track for a 15-minute trip. It took them over a year to rebuild the bridge.
We’re all very lucky to be alive. Yes, alcohol was involved but at the time, unopened. A sign from God? Perhaps…
Submitted on 07/26/2002
Submitted by:
Gary Shunk
Reference:
Fall 1966 - ongmont Times Call
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
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