Wheeling Fire Department, Towing Companies Pull Truck from Creek
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Wheeling firefighters and two tow companies went on a different kind of fishing expedition in Wheeling Creek on Wednesday morning. They were trying to hook a pickup truck.
The driver of the truck had parked in an alley near a storage facility on Wheeling Creek near Market Street last week. Somehow, Wheeling Fire spokesman Philip Stahl said, the truck rolled away over the embankment and into the creek.
Ace Garage, the fire department and Braden's Towing all came together Wednesday to pull the truck out of the water. Firefighters floated on a raft to the truck -- with the water sitting just below its roof -- and fastened it to the tow truck. In a couple of hours, it was out of the water.
Wheeling Public Works Director Rusty Jebbia said towing the truck out of the creek Wednesday was a crucial move. If the creek waters rose any more, that could have pushed the truck out to the Ohio River and made retrieval a lot tougher.
Stahl said the project had an ancillary benefit of allowing Wheeling firefighters some extra training with water maneuvers.