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Nancy Grace
Four Confirmed Dead in Bridge Collapse, 20 to 30 Still Missing
Aired August 02, 2007 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, breaking news. Terror over the water. A bridge that towered over a swirling Minnesota river crumbles at the height of rush hour. Tonight, a known 50 vehicles still at the bottom of the Mississippi River. Authorities estimate another week before they can all be pulled up amidst debris of twisted steel and huge chunks of concrete.
Headline tonight. Reports revealed years ago the bridge was deficient, and nothing was done. And then in the space of just four seconds, it all came crashing down.~
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have witnessed a day of horror and grief and tragedy and loss and pain and burden. And again, we want to express our prayers and our thoughts to the families who experienced a lost of a loved one or serious injury or other trauma.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you love someone, tell them you love them. Always tell them that you love them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be positive. That`s all we can ask for all of us. Sherry would want us to be positive. She would be positive for us if we were lost or unaccounted for. And we just hope for everybody and for her, in particular, that, you know, the Lord is with her and he`s protecting her and you know, somewhere or some way or she`s in a hospital some way as a Jane Doe, unidentified, that we can somehow get to her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Breaking news, a major Minneapolis eight-lane bridge collapses at the height of rush hour, plunging 64 feet down into the Mississippi River. Tonight, nearly 80 injured, dozens of cars still trapped under water, the death toll climbing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just after 6:00 PM, smack in the middle of rush hour, the interstate 35-W bridge between Minneapolis and St. Paul just broke apart, sending cars plunging into the water, others teetering on the edge, panicked drivers trapped inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a bunch of smoke, one car`s smoke shoot up straight into the air from the (INAUDIBLE) first, actually. And then it rippled to the north end.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Witnesses say dozens of car were on the bridge when the center section began to crumble, then and collapsed into the Mississippi River below.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just completely gave way, the whole bridge, from one side of the Mississippi to the other.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The bridge fell without warning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I fell probably about 30, 40 feet, landed on the shore of the Mississippi. I`m so lucky to be alive. On the way down, I thought I was dead. I literally thought I was dead. My truck was completely face down. It was pointing towards the ground, falling towards the ground. And my truck got ripped in half. When I got out of my truck, it was -- it was (INAUDIBLE) down. And I can`t believe I`m alive.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom is one big fighter. I know she can get through this. She`s just somewhere where we can`t see her right now. And she`s just waiting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s a strong woman. She`s going to come back home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Late word that 60-year-old Sherry Engebretsen has been declared dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her two daughters and her husband -- they were holding out that hope she was alive. Unfortunately, now the county medical examiner`s office has confirmed that she`s passed away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Tonight, many cars still trapped under water. Reports are that rescuers can actually see people in the cars but cannot risk going under to save them. You are seeing shots right now of the bridge that collapsed yesterday at the height of rush hour.
Let`s go straight out to Jean Casarez. Jean, what`s the latest?
JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: ... is one of the big issues today. There are 50 cars they believe submerged in the water, but divers were at a risk to go and try to see what was in those vehicles, a risk because of the current and a risk because, structurally, the bridge that was under water, it could very dangerous for them to go in. Now the Army Corps of Engineers is coming in. They believe those divers will begin to retrieve those vehicles. And at this point, 20 to 30 people are still missing.
GRACE: Joining us right now on the scene, Brian Todd. Brian, CNN correspondent, bring us up to date.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Nancy, right now, the recovery teams are still probing the river, trying to find any signs of vehicles or bodies. It`s very, very difficult work. They`re using sonar to try to locate some vehicles. But some of these cars are actually pinned underneath these massive slabs of steel and concrete, very, very hard to get to. They`re finding some vehicles with no bodies, no people in them, and they`re trying to figure out what happened to those bodies, whether they drowned, whether they drifted downstream.
It`s a lot of treacherous work because of all the twisted metal underneath the surface. The water is very murky. The currents are very strong also, and the Army Corps of Engineers is trying to help out by draining some of the water down. They`re trying to reduce the water level at least by a couple of feet by releasing some water downstream from here. They`re trying to do that. They should be doing that relatively soon. But it is very slow-going, treacherous work. They say it may take days to recover some of these bodies.
GRACE: With us, Brian Todd on the scene. Brian, I understand it was all of the debris that has actually changed the current of the Mississippi River, making it very difficult for divers and the possibility of side-scan sonar. Explain.
TODD: Well, I mean (INAUDIBLE) between all the vehicles down there, including an 18-wheel truck that they found in the water, and just these huge, huge slab of concrete, yes, the current has changed, and it makes their work a lot more difficult. This is kind of a layered river as it is, anyway. It`s got several drop-offs to try to, I guess, stem the current or regulate the current. But this has really thrown that out of whack. And it`s just~ incredibly treacherous work right now.
GRACE: Brian Todd is joining us. He is there on the scene at the Metrodome. Brian, now we learn that it had been revealed years ago that this bridge was in very bad shape. That`s a stunning revelation that we have tonight. What is the reaction there in Minnesota?
TODD: Well, officials are being very, very cautious about that. Yes, they do admit that in 2001 and 2005 and 2006, there were reviews on this bridge, where it was given ratings such as it was structurally either nonfunctional or unsound. And there was one study back in 2001 that said that this bridge had (INAUDIBLE) had some fatigue. There was also one in 1990 which revealed that there were -- there was corrosion in some of the joints in some of the approaches to the bridge.
But officials are saying, in each of these cases, they were always told that none of those problems merited closure of the bridge, that none of them portended an impending collapse.
GRACE: I`ve got here with me the very dense study, the fatigue evaluation of this particular bridge. We have combed through it, and one thing really glared out at me, Brian Todd. It said, "Therefore, replacement of the bridge and the associated high cost may be deferred." Did you know that, Brian? I wonder if that`s been made public yet, that they deferred the cost of repairing this bridge. I`m reading directly out of an executive summary, Brian.
TODD: Well, they did defer the repair to the bridge and replacement of the bridge. It was slated to be replaced in about 2020, according to some of the latest estimates and what the governor was told. But again, it was really -- what you`re hearing from officials here, it was really because they just didn`t find any significant structural difficulties, at least according to state officials, that led them to believe -- led them to at least be told that this bridge had to be shut down.
GRACE: Right. Out to the lines. Lisa in South Dakota. Hi, Lisa.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How`re you doing tonight?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With 40 years of salt and ash being put on the road with ice management, could that have in any way affected the structure of the bridge?
GRACE: Mike Brooks?
MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It`s a possibility, Nancy. That bridge goes through such extremes, being in Minnesota, extreme heat, the way we`ve been in the 90s the last couple days, extreme cold. But I think on the surface, that is only affect the surface with the salt, the -- everything else they use during the winter.
But again, we can`t say for sure whether or not it could have had an effect. You know, that report back in 1990 said -- classified it as structurally deficient. You know, what does that mean? Then the 2001 report, you know, what are~ they spending the money on?
GRACE: And another thing. Back out to Brian Todd, CNN correspondent joining us there on the scene, there in Minnesota tonight. We know of four dead. We also know that rescuers can actually see bodies trapped in cars below the water`s surface but have not been able to rescue them. The death toll is rising tonight. These are shots we are bringing you from the destruction of the bridge plunging 64 feet down into the Mississippi River.
Brian Todd, the feds now issue a warning for everyone to -- in all the states to inspect their bridges. We also see the feds backing off, stating this is a state responsibility. Do you really think, Brian, in the atmosphere right now, that anyone will stand for this inspection not to take place?
TODD: Well, they`re certainly going to look at all the bridges here, Nancy. And what officials here are telling us is they`re going to examine whether the state officials held up their end of the responsibility here. That`s going to be a separate investigation, according to the governor`s office. And they`re going to try to get to the bottom of this.
This is -- you`re starting to see here maybe the beginnings of a blame game being played here, state officials wanting to at least check with transportation officials to say, Look, how extensively did you really warn us? What were the warnings that you got? And you know, Come clean here. So I think a lot of that will be coming out in the days and weeks ahead.
GRACE: Joining us on the scene, CNN correspondent Brian Todd. Brian, stay with us.
I want to go to Dr. Jeffrey Chipman. Dr. Chipman is a trauma surgeon at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, and he has been diligently treating people injured during this collapse. Doctor, thank you for being with us.
DR. JEFFREY CHIPMAN, TRAUMA SURGEON, UNIV. OF MINN.: You`re welcome. It`s nice to be here.
GRACE: Doctor, tell us what you observed.
CHIPMAN: We at the University of Minnesota Medical Center Fairview took care of approximately 40~ patients. Five of them arrived by ambulance, and the other 35 arrived on their own power. We ended up admitting about 12 patients. Two of them were discharged today. We anticipate at least two others later today.
GRACE: What were the type of injuries you were seeing, Doctor?
CHIPMAN: The injuries we saw were mostly orthopedic in nature, meaning they had extremity fractures and some spinal cord injuries and a lot of bumps and bruises.
GRACE: What was the scene there in the medical center there last night?
CHIPMAN: It was controlled.~ There were -- we had four trauma teams working, at least. We had orthopedic surgery on board. We had neurosurgeons available. We had spine surgeons. We had all the ancillary services at the hospital. We had all of the CAT scanners in the hospital to work. Lots of people were called in and participated in the evaluation and resuscitation and treatment of these patients.
GRACE: With me, Dr. Jeffrey Chipman, a trauma surgeon treating the bridge patients throughout the night. Dr. Chipman, how were the patients responding? I mean, what were their recollections? What were they saying? I mean, one minute you`re driving or walking across the bridge, the next thing you know, you`re plunging 64 feet into the Mississippi River.
CHIPMAN: Well, they had amazing stories. I`m not sure that the events and the magnitude of the events had really affected them or had dawned on them yet. I think their stress, their injuries was kind of overwhelming at this point. I`m sure in the future, they will have many more emotions as they start to work through the events.
GRACE: Dr. Jeffrey Chipman, trauma surgeon. Why do you say it had not dawned on them yet?
CHIPMAN: I think after an injury and a catastrophe like that, that your mind is racing, and the magnitude and what it means, the significance of it, is not -- you can`t think about it. It doesn`t dawn on you what that means.
GRACE: Dr. Chipman, have you ever seen anything like this before?
CHIPMAN: I have never seen anything of this magnitude before, no.
GRACE: When you were in medical school, did they prepare you for anything like this?
CHIPMAN: No. No. But I will say that the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities area have done extensive disaster planning, and I would suspect that events as they unfolded yesterday were managed well and handled well by the state response teams. I`m sure elsewhere in the country, it would have been a different story.
GRACE: Dr. Chipman, are people showing up at the hospital looking for their loved ones that have gone missing?
CHIPMAN: There were a few at our hospital.
GRACE: Did you actually see them?
CHIPMAN: I did not.
GRACE: That must be awful to have to turn people away to tell them, Your wife, your mother, your sister, your brother are not here, go look somewhere else. Dr. Chipman, in light of what has happened, are the families there at the hospital angry, are they resentful, or are they just focused on getting their loved one back home?
CHIPMAN: I think they`re focused on getting their loved ones back home and well. I think all of those other ideas will be exacted in the future.
GRACE: Now, do you say that because you`re a trauma surgeon and you`re used to people dealing with all of these high emotions at the time, maybe shot, maybe they`re numbed, and then the reality starts to sink in later?
CHIPMAN: I think that`s true. People handle trauma differently. Some people are very stoic. Other people are very emotional about it. It`s hard to categorize anybody.
GRACE: With us, an expert, Dr. Jeffrey Chipman, trauma surgeon at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, treating people throughout the night, patients from the bridge collapse.
There are some rescue stories, some high points. Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When it happened, I didn`t even -- I thought I was dreaming because I was just sleeping because I was tired. I woke up at 9:00 o`clock and took the kids to go to swimming lesson. And then we came back to get ready to go to another field trip. I was kind of tired, so I was -- I went to sleep. And then one of the kids woke me up right before we hit the bridge.
i was looking at the bridge, and I remember because I was looking at the dam, and I was thinking we used to fish down there. Everything was going through my head. And then I seen where the boats crossed through. And then I just heard a big bang. I felt like we were in a car accident. But then I felt the bus going down because I was going (INAUDIBLE) the seat. And then crash, boom, it landed. And then it felt like we kept still going because then it went down again, and it crashed.
It stopped, and then you could hear kids, like, moaning and crying. They were all screaming. They were all -- they were thinking they were going to die even when we were safe. They was just -- they wanted their parents. And they don`t nobody to leave them. They were all trying to hold on to all the staff there at once, and they just didn`t want to let go. They -- I don`t think they knew that they were safe yet until they seen their parents.
They`re like my brothers, my little sisters. Like, I`ve been working here for five years. I feel like they`re a part of me. Every day I come, I come to see their smiles and...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was on the bridge. The bridge just completely went down, and it was about a 30 to 50-foot freefall. And my truck just completely split in half. I cannot believe -- I`m so thankful I was wearing my seatbelt. I hit -- that`s all I did was hit my steering wheel. My back is really, really hurting because of when we actually hit the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Again, joining us there at the scene, Brian Todd, CNN correspondent. Brian, were there warning signs? I know that they were doing construction on the bridge, but it`s my understanding, Brian, that construction was merely superficial.
TODD: Absolutely, it was, Nancy. I spoke to the head of the construction company earlier today. He told me that what they were doing was surface repairs, essentially repaving the top of this highway that goes across this bridge, not going much more than maybe a feet or two feet below the surface. I asked point blank, I said, Were you using jackhammers or anything like that? They wouldn`t comment on that, but they did say emphatically, that their work had nothing to do with this disaster.
GRACE: Yes, I`m sure they did, Brian. In fact, one of the people on the bridge, Brian Todd, said they heard jackhammers before the bridge went down. But the reality is, a jackhammer should not be enough to bring down a whole concrete bridge.
Brian, have you been to the scene? And what did you see?
TODD: I have been near the scene now. The police and the fire and rescue and the diving teams are really cordoning off the entire bank. It`s very hard to get very, very close to it. The Coast Guard has cordoned off miles of shoreline there, so it is hard to get up close. But I did go down to that area, and I saw cars being pulled out, lined up to get put on barges. We saw dive teams. We`re told there are several dive teams, upwards around four to six dive teams in the water, and boats all over the place. We saw those, as well. So they are really combing through this river.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were some cars in front of me. I didn`t hear any people, you know, yelling there. And there was a car right behind me. And I -- I walked there, and there was a woman in that car and she wasn`t moving, and I thought she was dead. And I heard some people screaming, you know, further to the north, and I helped a guy that was -- he was under a minivan or a truck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was just on my way home from work, just about to get over the river when it, you know, started going down. I could see the whole bridge in front of me as it was going down, watching the cars go in and then falling myself. It felt like the concrete just disappeared and you were just falling. It`s a free-fall all the way down.~ And when we hit the ground, we hit hard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Sixty-four feet, plunging into the Mississippi River in the height of rush hour.
Out to Brian Todd, CNN correspondent, joining us there. Brian, when you look out at the Mississippi River there in Minnesota, can you actually see the cars down in the water?
TODD: Some of them are visible. You can see some parts of cars protruding from the surface. Most of them are under the surface, and many of them, we`re told by a state official, are pinned underneath the concrete.
GRACE: Oh!
TODD: It`s really complicating things. They`re using sonar down there. And they`re not finding bodies sometimes even with the use of sonar. So yes, some vehicles are protruding from the surface. Most of those actually have been removed at this point. It`s the ones down beneath, again, under the twisted metal and concrete, that are very hard to get to, Nancy.
GRACE: Brian Todd, it`s my understanding that rescuers actually will hear people calling out to them, asking them to say either hello, good-bye to their families, asking for help. Is that true?
TODD: Well, what we`ve heard is that some people who were injured and who either were gravely injured or were, you know, in otherwise very, very bad condition, were telling rescue workers to say good-bye to their loved ones. Whether that was actually from some of the vehicles that were pinned, we`re not quite sure, but we are hearing accounts of that, Nancy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were all screaming. They were all -- they were thinking they were going to die. Even when we were safe, they were just -- they wanted their parents. And they didn`t want nobody to leave them. They were all trying to hold on to all of the staff at once, and they just didn`t want to let go. They just -- I don`t think they knew they were safe yet until they seen their parents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: As we speak, still submerged under water vividly, cars trapped underneath this bridge, underneath steel, concrete, more cars with the dead inside.
Out to Ted in Pennsylvania. Hi, Ted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good evening, Nancy.
GRACE: How are you, dear? What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. I would like to know, could there be any lawsuits against the Department of Transportation and the construction company?
GRACE: Boy, that`s a loaded question. Out to you, Penny Douglass Furr.
PENNY DOUGLASS FURR, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, I didn`t understand the question. Could you repeat that one more time.
GRACE: Lawsuits. Lawsuits, Penny. Lawyer, lawsuits.
FURR: Oh, lawsuits. I`m sorry. OK, Nancy. Yes, the first thing you would have to consider, Nancy, is that this is a government highway and there would be immunity. That`s the first thing I would consider, that you could only sue the government to the extent they agree to be sued, which is usually to their liability insurance.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole bridge is in the water. I mean, it`s down. And I thought, "That can`t be," but it was. I mean, everything was down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was surreal. And I saw everything drop. And (INAUDIBLE) the section behind me collapsed, and then I just waited. I mean, I just thought my section was next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The concrete just disappeared and you`re just falling, just a free-fall all the way down. And when we hit ground, we hit hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watched as the bridge collapsed with the cars on top of it. I saw several cars that couldn`t stop go over the bridge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m just praying she`ll make it. She`s a strong woman. She`s going to come back home. She`s going to be home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The grim reality setting in for many that their loved one is not coming back home. It`s hard to understand how there could be an estimated number of those not accounted for, because how can we ever who was crossing that bridge at that particular moment, the moment the bridge collapsed, plunging cars, cement, steel, 64 feet into the Mississippi River?
Out to the lines, Nancy in Georgia. Hi, Nancy.
CALLER: Hi, Nancy, how are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
CALLER: My question is, what are authorities doing at this time, being that there are 50 cars submerged in the water, what are they doing at this time to go find these people?
GRACE: Brian Todd is with us there at the scene. What are they doing? I understand they`re trying to lower the water to bring it down. How are they doing that?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what the Army Corps of Engineers tell us that they`re going to release some water downstream. This river is kind of a complicated system of not so much dams, but just kind of layers of areas where they try to regulate the current. And what they`re doing is, they`re going to release some water that is being held downstream, not far from the collapse point, and try to lower the water level at least a couple of feet.
They think that will help some investigators here and also help the recovery teams. But they`re also -- I mean, these dive teams are using sonar, they`re using other equipment to try to find cars. It is slow work. Again, we talked about how treacherous it was. But they are determined to try to find these cars. They think there may be -- I mean, the estimates of the number of cars down there are really a range, Nancy. We`re hearing as low as 15, as high as 50.
GRACE: Explain how it works, Mike Brooks, with the locks and the keys.
MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE: Well, Nancy, I lived in Minnesota for quite some time. And I can tell you right where that bridge is, just above there, there is a dam, and there`s a lock on that dam. What they can do to regulate the flow, the Army Corps of Engineers can go ahead and shut the water off there and then let the water flow a little bit lower down river, because the whole Mississippi in that area, from there all the way down to Wisconsin, is a series of locks and dams.
GRACE: Explain locks.
BROOKS: Locks, it`s basically you can stop the water. Also, you can have a boat, and you come up alongside, it blocks the water off, it fills it up, it dumps it, then you go down to the next one. And that`s why this bridge was designed the way it was, because there is some river traffic of boats there in that particular area.
GRACE: The way the series of locks and dams and keys work is that there is a structure built in the water that is moveable. It can pin up the water or it can release water and lower the water so that rescue can get in, as Mike Brooks is explaining.
I want to go to Peter Gannon, the president of Dive Rescue International. Peter, how can they go about recovering the bodies underwater? They`re talking about sidescan sonar, but the reality is, Peter, that with all the debris in the water, the cement, the steel, it`s going to be very difficult for the sidescan sonar to distinguish between vehicles and debris. And also, how do you go about escaping from a car, especially if there are electric windows, when you`re plunging into water or when you are at the bottom of the water?
I think I`ve got...
(CROSSTALK)
PETER GANNON, DIVE RESCUE INTERNATIONAL: OK. Yes, there are several ways of doing it. Once when they lower the water, that will allow us to get into lower...
GRACE: Yes?
GANNON: Can you hear me, Nancy?
GRACE: Yes, I can hear you very well!
GANNON: OK, that`s going to allow the divers -- OK, that`s going to allow the divers to get underwater and to get to some of the cars. However, at this point, it`s a recovery operation, and it has to be done methodically, piece by piece. Everything has to be documented, what each diver is doing.
GRACE: Peter...
GANNON: There needs to be a lot of dive teams out there.
GRACE: Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter...
GANNON: Yes?
GRACE: My question is, how do you escape from a car in the water?
GANNON: OK. When your vehicle goes in the water, the first thing you need to do, if your battery is not damaged is, even with power windows, push the buttons down, lower the window, and get out of the car. Do not wait for the car to fill up. Lower the window.
Another tool, you can have a little hammer that knocks out the window on the side. It will shatter into small pieces, break out the window and get out of the car before it goes down. You don`t know how deep it is, and you don`t know if you can make it back up. The car could roll over on its roof, and that could entrap you down into the mud. So get out before the car goes down.
GRACE: Mike?
BROOKS: Yes, you know, sometimes that`s the idea, but, you know, the other thing, too, in this particular river, there`s shallow spots, and there`s pools. And it`s easy to say, "Yes, you can break a window," but not many people have a center punch or a hammer. You know, Pete and I, we do in our cars because we used to do this for a living.
But, you know, the other thing, a vehicle with all of the windows closed will float a lot longer than a car with all of the windows open. And one of the things you want to try to do, if you can`t get out of the car right away, is to let the water pressure on the outside has to become equal to the inside, OK? So as it fills up with water, then it will be make it easier to open the doors.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: ... it fills up with water? You`re in there. Why do you want it to fill up with water, for God`s sake?
BROOKS: Well, that`s one of the things you -- to get the door open, sometimes you have to have equal pressure on the inside of the car and on the outside of the car. And the way you do that, you let it fill up with water, as much as you can, and then it will be easier to open the windows and also, I should say, the doors of the car.
GRACE: Out to Brian Todd, standing by there on the scene. Brian, all of the talk about sidescan sonar, I don`t understand how the sonar -- and I don`t think it can -- differentiate between the debris and the cars. You`re going to have to send live divers down there, and they`ve got to be divers that are expert in, for instance, wreck diving, technical diving, cave diving, in other words, to go through very narrow spaces, not get caught with a tank, not get hurt themselves, people that are used to seeing through murky water. I mean, how long are they going to allow these cars to just stay down there with the dead in the cars?
TODD: Well, Nancy, everything you describe is everything that is complicating this and making it take so long. The sonar is one thing. I think that`s just one tool. And maybe Mike can explain how the sonar actually helps them find the cars. But I think that`s just one tool that they`re using.
And everything that you just explained, the fact that they have to go down there and feel around, lift things, move things around, try to see some things in water where you really can`t see very much, it is incredibly murky. It`s not very deep in many places, but, again, imagine being down there, if you`re a diver. You can`t see two feet in front of you. Your sonar is working some places and maybe not working in others.
And even when the sonar works, you don`t know what you`re coming across until you`re right up on it. And then when you`re right up on it, you might have to try to move something that weighs a couple of tons. So then you`ve got to go back out, get whatever equipment is needed to try to move that particular piece of concrete or metal, and this just gives you an idea.
GRACE: Yes.
TODD: That`s what they`re doing right now. The one key question is, will they continue this during the evening hours? They didn`t do that last night.
GRACE: Well, Brian, and I`m not making light of the task, because I`ve done night diving. I couldn`t see a thing. And I don`t know how they can go about doing it, but I know there are ways of doing it. And it`s very disturbing to think the cars with people in them are trapped under the water and they can`t be rescued.
We do have with us tonight Julie Schwartz, actually under the bridge at the time of collapse. She then went in and assisted with the rescue, in my mind, a hero. Ms. Schwartz, thank you for being with us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You still got that...
GRACE: I think I`ve got Julie Schwartz with me. Julie, are you there?
JULIE SCHWARTZ, UNDER BRIDGE WHEN IT COLLAPSED: Yes, I`m here.
GRACE: Hi, Julie. Tell us what happened.
SCHWARTZ: Hold on. We were there at a medical building at the corner of Washington and I-35 (INAUDIBLE) at that time, we (INAUDIBLE) something funny on bridge came down within a couple of minutes. And we were on the side with the school bus and (INAUDIBLE) we immediately went down to (INAUDIBLE) and at that point in time, there was some (INAUDIBLE) then all of a sudden (INAUDIBLE).
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was right, at that point, right next to that car, standing on top of a hill looking straight down at several cars that it took me probably 10 seconds to figure out that they were cars. They were just completely mangled, and I would be shocked if anybody survived. And I saw at least three vehicles in that condition.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was on the bridge. The bridge just completely went down, and it was about a 30- to 50-foot freefall. And my truck was just completely split in half. I cannot believe -- I`m so thankful I was wearing my seatbelt. That`s all I did, was hit my steering wheel. My back is really, really hurting because of when we actually hit the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Within a few minutes, we were just boom, boom, boom. I mean, we felt this horrible -- and we were falling, literally falling. And then, all of a sudden, we were stopped. And our car was at this awful angle, you know, just smashed in, and we were on top of a smaller car.
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GRACE: Joining me right now, two very special guests, Donovan Taylor, the director of the Trauma Services Center at Minnesota Medical Center, and Dr. Sapoora Manshan, trauma surgeon also at the Minnesota Medical Center.
Thank you to both of you for being with us. Mr. Taylor, explain to us what type of injuries you have observed.
DONOVAN TAYLOR, DIRECTOR OF TRAUMA SERVICES: We saw, just as Dr. Chipman (ph) mentioned, we saw orthopedic injuries, blunt trauma, and deceleration injuries. We mostly saw external fractures, open and closed, and back pain, which was (INAUDIBLE) broad fractures due to the impact when the cars had fell in water.
GRACE: So people actually did survive going off the bridge into the water, yes?
TAYLOR: Yes, ma`am.
GRACE: Mr. Taylor, you said a code orange alert was initiated. What is that?
TAYLOR: That`s when a situation presents itself that we were going to be taking -- the number of patients would be overwhelming what the E.R. could handle, so a code orange was initiated by the E.R. staff, and an incident command center was set up at our hospital. And we practice these drills throughout the year, and the practice paid off.
GRACE: Also with me, Dr. Sapoora Manshan, Doctor, thank you so much for being with us. I know it`s been an excruciating 24 hours for you. Tell me what you saw last night.
DR. SAPOORA MANSHAN, TRAUMA SURGEON: We saw approximately 40 patients, for the most part, blunt injuries. None of them were life- threatening injuries. Most of the patients were in shock, not physiologic shock, but just terrified, and basically could not believe what had happened.
GRACE: Doctor, so these are patients that actually went off the bridge and into the water? They lived to tell the tale?
MANSHAN: A portion of them, not all of them.
GRACE: Yes. I want to go out to Richard Bieder, attorney. We are getting flooded with calls about legal consequences and the possibility of lawsuit. Weigh in. You have handled mass destruction cases many, many times before.
RICHARD BIEDER, PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY: I have indeed.
GRACE: What do you think?
BIEDER: Well, it`s a little too early to tell who`s at fault. Bridges are not built to fall down. I mean, we`ve got bridges they built in Roman times 2,500 years ago that still have traffic going over them. They never collapsed.
The NTSB is there, I understand, and they will do an initial investigation. And that`s one of the reasons why they have to remove the debris over the cars first before they go to the people. They`re trying to get to the root of what happened so they can prevent it from happening in the future.
And there will be -- no doubt, there will be some lawsuits filed on behalf of the people who were injured or died. You have to look at the immunities, as somebody else earlier said. There were short time limits for certain notices to be filed in Minnesota. I think the shortest is, within 180 days, you have to file a notice of claims against certain entities, and no doubt that will happen.
In the Mianus River bridge collapse, which occurred in Connecticut, it`s a case in which I was involved, there were three people who were killed. It was a 70-foot drop, one big 100-foot span just dropped out at 1:30 in the morning. Thank goodness it was 1:30 in the morning and not during drive time. But three people were killed, and three people were seriously injured. Ultimately there were suits brought.
GRACE: Joining us also, Pam Hayes, veteran trial lawyer. Weigh in, Pam.
PAM HAYES, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think what you`re going to -- I agree with what most of the lawyers have said today. I think you`re going to have to check, first, who had the duty of care, whether there was a breach of the duty. And basically, you know, who is charged with, you know, maintaining this road? Is it a federal government, a state government? And if so, you have to do that, find out who`s in charge.
GRACE: Well, you know, I want to go out to Bethany Marshall. Bethany, there is a public outcry. There was a report years ago that this bridge was deficient. So I`m shocked people that are saying, "Gee, I wonder who`s at fault." The government knew. They knew what was required to repair this bridge and others.
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: And you know what`s going to put salt on the wound is if the government steps in and said, "Oh, well, this isn`t an act of terrorism," as if they`re trying to point their fingers that way, when in fact it was this way. We do rely on our government to a certain extent to keep ourselves safe. And one of the things about post- traumatic stress disorder is when something happens and it`s unanticipated. And that`s going to be hard for people who were involved.
GRACE: To Jean Casarez, how often was the bridge inspected? And why suddenly today, coincidentally, right after this, the feds said, "OK, everybody inspect your bridges," like they didn`t know.
JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: Sure. Since the early `90s, it had been expected every single year. But, you know, Nancy, construction was going on, on the bridge. And they said that it was just resurfacing, so it could have nothing to do with this.
But somebody made the decision that only two lanes were allowed to be open during rush hour yesterday. So you can imagine the bridge, all the weight of the cars, and the two lanes with this bridge being determined in 1990 structurally deficient, with issues during the years of how much mass the bridge could be allowed to hold, and someone made that decision? That possibly could be a legal issue right there.
GRACE: Mike?
BROOKS: I tell what you, Nancy, it`s, you know, whodunit? That`s the thing. Who, what, when, where, why, how, what happened last night?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn`t know what was going on. My eyes were closed. I opened them. I saw cement blocks in the front of the car, and then all of a sudden we were stopped and our car was perpendicular to the ground.
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GRACE: Tonight cars with victims inside still trapped underwater. Right now, we still don`t know when they will be rescued. Back to CNN correspondent Brian Todd, joining us there in Minnesota. What can you tell us as we say good night?
TODD: Well, Nancy, one thing that may play out tonight, they were not decided yet whether they were going to search in the evening hours at darkness. They did not do that last night; the conditions just were not right. Currents were still very strong. They might have mitigated some of those currents tonight. I think that`s going to be kind of a moment-by- moment decision until we see nightfall. That may really mark whether they make significant progress or not. And we`ll know more by tomorrow morning.
GRACE: You know, Mike Brooks, when I listen to Brian Todd and I hear the family who is waiting for their mom to come home for supper, and I look at that report, and they knew, they knew this bridge was defective, like many other, I think, 80,000 in this country...
BROOKS: Something like that, Nancy.
GRACE: We need a warning over the bridges!
BROOKS: There`s 187 of these same types of bridges in Ohio. I mean, the list, it just goes on and on, 18, Alabama, 10, Indiana, 19, Massachusetts. You know, how many more of these bridges are structurally deficient, as they said this bridge was back in 1990? The NTSB has their work cut out for them. And right now, they are in the midst of their investigation of trying to find out what happened.
GRACE: Tonight, let`s don`t forget our heroes, Army Sergeant Shawn Adams, 21, Dixon, California, killed, Iraq. A paratrooper with a smile that lit up a room, loved swimming, football, baseball, movies, devoted friend, newlywed. Leaves behind grieving parents, Dorsey and Laura, sister, Lacey, Samantha, Mary, widow, Wilhelmina. Shawn Adams, American hero.
Thank you for being with us tonight and letting us take you to Minnesota. And a special prayer for the mother of our legal expert, Ray Giudice, his mom just out of highly delicate surgery. Our prayers also in Minnesota tonight.
See you tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friend.
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