Blame icy roads for an accident that pinned a young girl by the arm under the cab of a
pickup truck after it skidded off Bringle Ferry Road and down an embankment on Tuesday.Members of the Liberty Fire Department and
Rowan County Rescue Squad used the jaws of life and hydraulic cutters to pull the cab of
the truck away from Courtney Lowman’s trapped arm, Rescue Squad Chief Coyt Karriker
said.
Then, rescue workers used an air
bag lifting system to evenly raise the truck off the girl’s arm.
A third-grade student at Morgan
Elementary School, Lowman was traveling in the truck with her father, Randy, and another
young girl around 4:30 p.m. The N.C. Highway Patrol report was not available this morning
to identify the other girl. Randy Lowman and the other girl escaped with cuts and bruises.
Courtney Lowman was flown from
Liberty Fire Department to Wake Forest Baptist University Medical Center and sent home
about four hours after the accident.
But plastic sleds at the scene of
the accident led Tabitha Hand, a volunteer with Liberty Fire Department and the Rescue
Squad, to believe the three were going sledding. Hand said there was a patch of ice where
the truck swerved out of control and a curve where the truck drove down the embankment.
Liberty Fire Chief Darrin Trexler
said Randy Lowman had to kick the windshield out to free the other girl. Rescue workers
plowed through at least six inches of snow down the embankment plus a lot of snow drift,
Coyt Karriker said.
Pleased to hear Courtney Lowan had
returned home, Trexler said, “She was doing good at the scene.” |
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