Just after midnight Monday, North Montgomery County Firefighters were returning from a car crash. As they approached the intersection of SH 105 and Willis Waukegan on of the firefighters happened to notice the guardrail over the creek missing. The truck backed up and that is when they spotted a 2000 Chevrolet Tahoe upside down in about four feet of water and twelve feet below the road level. An immediate call to dispatch for additional trucks and EMS to respond to assist. With a ladder placed along with the bank, crews went down into the water to check on victims. The vehicle was so far down that they were not able to see in it. JAWS and cutting tools were lowered down to begin cutting into the vehicle. A call was put out for a wrecker in hopes of hooking to the vehicle and raising it enough to look inside. However, since Montgomery County implanted the rotation tow policy there were no wreckers on the scene. Also on May 1, 2021, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office encrypted their radio system so they could not be monitored. That included wreckers. Firefighters standing in almost four feet of water with outside temperatures at 45 degrees worked close to twenty minutes cutting the doors off the vehicle so it could be swept for victims. Once the doors were off and it was determined there were no victims, firefighters began to search the waters around the vehicle and the banks upstream. It was then that the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office was able to contact the registered owner and learned the driver had escaped and returned home. With the vehicle so far below the road level, a regular wrecker was not able to recover it. Kwik Tow responded with a heavy-duty wrecker. The vehicle was raised out and after some coaxing was put down on all four wheels on the roadway. Willis Waukegan reopened at about 2:30 am.
