A sad, spooky tale for Halloween (A true story) Okay, I realize that this is stretching the rules of the group a bit, but I hope the moderators will indulge me this .... I would like to tell you a spooky little story about the bridge I took this photo from. Some of the local members of this group may know of the story I am about to tell you. The bridge is known as the Yankeetown Bridge ... It is located in northern Union county Indiana, north of the town of Brownsville. The bridge is an odd one, the western approach comes down from a wooded ridge, and the eastern approach rises up from corn fields which lie in the flood plain ... As soon as you cross the bridge headed east the road drops steeply from the bridge. It is a very isolated location. Back in the year 2000, on a night in January, we were being deluged with rain ... Flooding was bad all over the area. I had been dispatched to the town of Centerville to assist evacuating residents from their homes that were being threatened by what was normally a small little creek. The night was very confusing, with many dispatches coming from county EOC to different police agencies, and fire departments directing units to assist people in trouble. Around 10:30 PM I heard a dispatch asking a unit to check a report of lights in the river south of the Beelor road bridge. A county unit investigated and reported negative results ... Heres what really happened A young mother, on her way to her 3rd shift job was driving east headed for the Yankeetown bridge. In the car with her was her infant child which she was going to drop at her mothers house while she worked the night shift .... It was as I said, raining extremely hard, and visibility in the dark night was very limited. The woman crossed the bridge and began the decent down from the structure, and unexpectedly drove into the flooded river which was covering the road. Her small car began to drift across the corn field towards a woods at the south end of the field. The car became lodged in the tree line once it reached the woods. The water was about chest deep, very cold, and moving with a nasty current. No one will ever know exactly why, but the best investigators could come up with was that she decided to leave the car, and attempt to walk out to the road east of the bridge. She nor her baby made it. Their bodies were discovered the next day far downstream from the bridge. I cant think of anything more terrifying as the last minutes of this poor womans life ... Wading through chest deep icy water in total blackness clutching her baby in her arms ... And the horrific moment when she went down in the current and her precious infant was torn from her grasp. Had she just stayed in her car she would have likely made it ... Had the report of lights in the river been at the correct bridge she might have made it ... The ifs of life. The only positives of their heartbreaking deaths were that safety gates were installed on the west end of the bridge, and east of the bridge beyond the normal reaches of the flooded Whitewater River ... Now when it floods the county closes the gates. Her family, the following spring, put up a trellis and planted roses with the names of the mother and daughter on it ... Alas the unforgiving river took the trellis in another flood and the only monument to their passing are the gates. Local legend now says that on dark rainy days or nights, that you can stand in the middle of the bridge, and if you listen closely you can hear quiet sobbing drifting up from the river downstream ... I stood there but heard nothing ... I was overcome with a great feeling of sadness, and found myself not wanting to hang out there any longer ... I dont even recall their names, but I always think about them when I cross this bridge
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 18:03:12 +0000
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