Wednesday morning, crews from the Coffee County Fire Department and Midway Truck Parts fished a GMC Yukon from a creek in eastern Coffee County.
The vehicle ended up in the creek late Tuesday afternoon when its owner, Mark Adams of Douglas, swerved to miss a deer that was crossing Highway 158 East near the Highway 64/Wilsonville crossroads. Adams, who was traveling east, made an evasive maneuver to his right. He missed the deer but drove off a concrete culvert into the creek – a drop of about six feet from the road to the water.
Adams escaped the accident unharmed. The vehicle, however, was completely submerged in the creek. Emergency crews investigated the accident scene Tuesday and decided to wait until Wednesday to get the vehicle.
Beginning around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, deputies from the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office, county fire chief Steve Carver, firefighter Bradley Adams, and divers Chip Payne and Daniel Maley secured the scene and located the Yukon underwater. Payne dove down and attached a cable to the vehicle. Then James Graham from Midway pulled the vehicle from the bottom of the creek. He and a co-worker then dragged the Yukon onto a rollback wrecker and transported it back to Douglas.
Traffic was delayed on Highway 158 East off and on from 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 Wednesday. Both lanes, however, were only blocked for just a few minutes.