SPARROWBUSH, NY — After a crane, called a bridge tracker, got caught in the strong current of the Delaware River and turned on its side on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 7, emergency crews from local fire stations were the first to arrive on the scene to help the three persons who had been inside it to safety. They had climbed from the tracker, and stood on it while waiting. No one was hurt. The river is shallow enough at that point that a big part of the tracker remained above water level.

A team from Hercon Group from Paradise, PA had just finished an inspection of railroad bridge #2 near Sparrowbush, and was returning from the Pennsylvania side to New York when the accident happened, a representative of the company said the next morning. National Park Service (NPS) Acting Chief Ranger Larry Neal explained the next morning at the site that bridge #2 marks the southern terminus of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, and since the tracker is slightly below the bridge, NPS played an assisting rather than lead role in handling the accident. Port Jervis, Sparrowbush, Westfall and Lumberland fire departments were at the scene.

Hercon Group used a “winching and cabling operation” to turn the tracker back. First one and then, after it was deemed insufficient, a second cable was thrown from the bridge, and a team of three took a boat and tied both to the tracker.

Joe Hinkes, Upper Delaware River operations chief, and Bob Plumb from PA Fishing and Boating Commission were available to assist from a power boat, as well as Lumberland Fire Department reps in an airboat that’s used in rescue operations.

The tracker interrupted some boaters because it was in the middle of major flow. NPS teams alerted boaters to stay away. Boat liveries and other river operations had been alerted, Neal said.

The bridge tracker was eventually pulled upright and removed from the river on July 9.