Debbie

I know exactly where this happened and it is tough enough to navigate this particular area on a bright sunny and clear day. This woman was very lucky and so was everyone else concerned. For a picture, go to the link http://www.kare11.com/news/ts_articl...storyid=270116

Woman crashed into silo; cell phone camera captures fall

The guys at Lake Services towing in Balsam Lake, Wisconsin have come to expect the unexpected. But even they did a double when they drove up to the rural Amery farm on Tuesday morning.

A 60 foot cement silo, with half its base broken away, teetered over a GMC van that had crashed through the silo, and now sat almost entirely within it. Jeramy Jones and the other drivers knew removing the van without toppling the silo "wasn't going to be easy."

The van's 28-year-old driver, Sarah Baillargeon of Amery, missed a sharp curve on highway 65, in the fog shortly after midnight Tuesday, according to Lt. Steve Smith of the Polk County Sheriff's Department. "She drove straight off the intersection and passed through the ditch and stuck the silo and penetrated it," said Smith.

Jason Moody of Lake Services volunteered to climb into the van to attach the towing strap, unsure how much longer the silo could continue to defy gravity. "I thought it could fall and looked in the van where I could lay if it fell," he said.

Fortunately for Moody, the silo didn't fall - until a Lake Services tow truck started to pull the van out. "People started hollering and I looked up and it started wobbling," said Jeff Traynor, owner of Lake Services, who had been standing by the tow truck winching out the van. "I still had my hand on the handles and it was already on the ground."

On Tuesday night the flattened van sat in the Lake Services storage yard, while the company's drivers offered a perspective only tow truck operators could bring. "I think it's more dangerous to be on Interstate 94 or Highway 8 on any given day in a snowstorm," said Jones.

Smith says Baillargeon injured her ankle, seconds after the accident, when she stepped out of the van in the dark and fell several feet into the silo pit. Two deputies, Ron Pedrys and Eric Palmer climbed into the pit to rescue her, unsure themselves how much longer the silo could remain upright with half its base now missing.

Smith says the driver was fortunate. "If that silo would have come down on top of the van while she was in there, she would not be here any longer."

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