I promise you the video above of a news broadcast where a GMC Sierra meets its slow, wet demise off the end of a boat launch is not a clip from a sketch comedy show, but an actual thing that actually happened late last week in Springfield, Illinois.
ABC affiliate WICS got it all on camera on July 29, but the beautiful thing about it is that — as you could probably tell by the snap turn-around and gasp by the reporter and in-the-moment hapless shrugging from the individual on the boat — the story of interest here was not supposed to be a sinking pickup. That was mere coincidence!
I’ve watched this video multiple times now. For the life of me, I cannot remember what this friendly face of Springfield’s local ABC news team is talking about before he moves out of the way. Even when I try to really pay attention, I find my mind drifting, much like the 7,000-pound mass lowering itself into the deep. Sinking trucks have a tendency to do that.
WICS later reported on this incident, as it now had a juicy new story on its hands that was infinitely more interesting than whatever they showed up to the lake for in the first place. But it couldn’t tell us much, saying only that “the owner of the vehicle was in the process of taking a boat onto the lake with a woman and a boy when the incident occurred.” Thankfully, nobody was hurt. That’s all we got.
We don’t know if the driver here forgot to put the Sierra in park, use the emergency brake or some water got underneath it and physics simply carried it the rest of the way. The truck appears to steer left and right and left again as it’s pulled back, presumably by the current. And then it simply disappears into the murky abyss.
I have never lowered a boat into a body of water before, but the good folks over at Boating World have (presumably). They’ve got some helpful words of advice should you ever find yourself in this situation. The TL;DR is take it slow — really slow.
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