Rhine rescue Drunk 28-year-old drives car into Rhine
Bad Godesberg · Rescue services were deployed in the early hours of Sunday to pull a car from the Rhine near the Bad Godesberg ferry.
It could have been fatal. On his way home from a private party and under the influence of alcohol, a 28-year-old driver made a grave mistake. Around 3.03am on Sunday he drove his white family-sized car, with two male passengers, from Von-Sandt-Ufer into the river. The man later told police he had taken a wrong turn. As it was dark, he apparently mistook the ferry entry ramp for a street.
The car sank two metres onto the riverbed. The three occupants later told police they were able to escape from the flooded car just in time and get to the riverbank, but it took a lot of effort. Police found the men, aged 20, 28 and 35, in a nearby restaurant. They were soaked through but unharmed. They took the 28-year-old to Bad Godesberg police station and took a blood sample from him. They had taken a reading of 1.28 parts per thousand in an alcohol test performed on the driver. The police would not confirm on Sunday whether the man was from Bonn. The car had a Hamburg number plate and was possibly a hire car.
The fire brigade turned up in the night with around 60 men to get the car out of the river. Fire chief Frank Linnarz first used boats to secure the car and make sure it was not swept further up stream. Divers from the Deutsche Lebensrettungsgesellschaft (German Life Saving Society)(DLRG) fixed straps to the white car. The fire brigade then pulled it out of the water with its boot and driver’s door open, and onto the ferry entry ramp using the winch on a rescue vehicle. As soon as the wheels made contact with the ramp, a fireman got into the car and steered it in the right direction. Members of the Königswinter voluntary fire brigade, the DLRG Bonn and Troisdorf and the Bad Honnef Technisches Hilfswerk (German Federal Agency for Technical Relief) were also on duty.
(Original text: Jens Kleinert. Translated by Kate Carey.)
