Syndey Thomas is a semi-truck driver who was driving her tractor-trailer across the Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky on March 1 when a crash started a chain reaction that sent her truck plummeting halfway over the bridge, dangling above the near-certain death should would have met in the river below. Fortunately, Thomas was rescued, and she credits her prayers with leading to her timely rescue.
As background, while Thomas drove across the bridge, a nearby driver named Trevor W. Branham who was driving on a suspended license lost control of his vehicle. His car then swerved across the road into the opposite, oncoming lane. That then led to him colliding with another car and initiating a chain-reaction crash, as that struck car hit Thomas’ truck and sent it partway over the bridge.
Thomas, speaking in an interview with WHAS-TV, said that it is her belief that divine intervention played a role in her timely rescue. Commenting on how she prayed and the Lord was listening, saying, “Sometimes you pray, and I’m guilty of this: I pray, and I don’t think God is listening. But He was that day.” She said, “I sat there and I just started praying.”
Her father, Marc Thomas, said much the same thing about God’s role in the rescue when speaking to the same outlet, telling it, “It didn’t really hit me until I looked over to my right [while crossing the Kennedy Bridge] and I’d seen that equipment hanging into the air.” He added, “That [rescue] was nothing but God displaying himself to me.”
Further, Thomas noted that she won’t stop driving just because of the scary incident, as she wants to fulfill God’s purpose for her life. She said, “God has me here for a reason and I have to fulfill my purpose in life.” She added, “And I can’t let something like that stop me from doing what I’m supposed to do for Him, because He brought me out of it.” She then said, “He doesn’t want me to … live in fear the rest of my life.”
Also speaking on the matter was Bryce Carden, a Louisville firefighter. He descended from a crane, to which he was harnessed, to reach Thomas, dangling over the side of the bridge. In a powerful moment, Carden asked Thomas if he could pray with her. She agreed and they prayed together before she was rescued out of the cab. Carden, speaking to the same local outlet, said, “She was praying a lot. And I prayed with her.”
Watch the dash camera footage of the terrifying incident here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video