A car plunged about 600 feet off U.S. Highway 26 to Mill Creek at a bridge north of Warm Springs early Saturday morning, killing the driver and leading to a recovery operation that closed a 25-mile stretch of the highway and detoured motorists for about four hours, officials said.
Warm Springs Fire and Safety and Warm Springs Police were dispatched around 12:20 a.m. to the Mill Creek Bridge near milepost 93 on a report that a vehicle had driven off the highway at the bridge, according to Lt. Garrett Webb, public information officer for the fire department.
Crews arrived on scene a short time later and were able to see in the darkness a vehicle on its top and side in the shallow creek below, Webb said.
Due to the car’s location and the distance down to the creek, the incident “transitioned from a rescue to recovery,” Webb said in a news release.