According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The Good Samaritan who tried his best Tuesday to pull Stephanie Johnston, 13, from beneath the sheet of ice covering the Meramec River before it was too late gave a poignant account of the unsuccessful rescue.
Mark Andress, 41, who witnessed the small truck flipping airborne from the slick surface of the bridge, landing 60 feet below in the ice-packed river, said he clambered down from the bridge to try to help.
He said he saw a tennis shoe protruding from the hole in the ice where the truck had plunged through.
"I slid into the water just a little and got her leg and yanked her out," Andress said. "She came out like breech – feet first.
"My total concentration was that girl. I hate cold water, but in this instance I was just thinking about the girl.
"When I pulled her up, her face was like purple.
"I asked somebody if they knew how to do CPR, and they took over from there.
"When I saw her face float up it was kind of sad. I never saw a dead person, but I was rubbing her feet while people were doing CPR, and praying that she'd come to.
"But the whole time she was down there, I didn't see her come to."
When police and paramedics arrived, the child was airlifted to Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis, where she was pronounced dead several hours later.
Police said snow plowed away from the driving lanes and against the bridge guardrails created a ramp effect that sent over the side the pickup driven by Stephanie's father, Donald, 38, who escaped without serious injury.
A state highway official said road crews were too busy clearing roads to remove snow piled along the edges of bridges.
Ninety minutes earlier, on the same bridge, a car driven by a woman also slid, lofting over the side onto a snow bank 30 feet below. She was hospitalized with a broken collar bone.
Police Sgt. Thomas Leassner said motorists hitting those piles of snow created by road plows "don't stop ... they just go over the top."
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