The Ketchikan public works employee who survived a landslide that killed his coworker last month in the Southeast Alaska community is recovering as he shared his harrowing survivor’s story.
that killed his coworker last month in the Southeast Alaska community is recovering as he shared his harrowing survivor’s story with Alaska ’s News Source.
“We have a few that are dangerous,” Riley said. “Most of them, it’s grab a shovel or rake and just clear them off. Not too bad.”While doing their job, a call came from their boss that water was overflowing on Fifth Avenue. The two men got in Riley’s Ford F150 truck and started heading west on Third Avenue.“I’m driving down the road, all of a sudden a log lands in front of me. Bam! Hits hard — kind of explodes — and a rock,” Riley remembered, estimating he was driving 35 miles an hour.
“And then I’m looking around, and first thing I did, I call Sean’s name, and I’m getting nothing in return, nothing, no noise, no sound, anything,” Riley recalled. “And then I realize my legs are under the drivers — under the steering wheel. I’m kind of in the passenger side roof because we’re upside down at this point, and and I can’t move my shoulders. My shoulders just pinned hard. I’m just being crushed.
Remembering the moment first responders freed him, he said he believes if he had been wearing a seat belt he would have been crushed to death.
Sean Griffin Ketchikan Landslide Ketchikan Landslide Survivor Alaska
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