MENASHA, Wisconsin (CNN) – The Racine Street bridge is a popular thoroughfare in Menasha.
And on the night of the Fourth of July, it was especially busy as the city’s fireworks had ended and people were heading home.
But as the bridge-tender dropped the warning arms and started to lift the bridge, a 37-year-old Menasha woman on a bicycle ignored those warnings.
“She went through them, she ended up being unstable, went into the gap between the drawbridge and the rest of the bridge,” said Deputy Chief Brett Halderson of the Menasha Police Department.
As this department of transportation video shows, it took bystanders about 90 seconds to come to the woman’s rescue.
“What people usually do when they’re at a drawbridge, getting through with their electronic devices, and the ones that did see it probably didn’t realize what was going on right at first or didn’t believe it,” said Halderson.
After realizing what had happened, several people did make the decision to help the woman.
One man jumped right into the seam, where he eventually lifted the injured woman out, followed by the bicycle she had been riding.
“When I watched the video, I was a little concerned because they were jumping down into where the mechanics are,” said Halderson. “The gate doesn’t move that quickly. The bridge doesn’t move that quickly. But there’s a lot of metal moving in there, so you get a little uneasy when people are jumping in there, but they did it quickly, got in there, got her out as quickly as well as they could.”
Police say they suspect the 37-year-old may have been drinking before the incident.
She has since been cited for failure to obey a traffic signal