Crane Crews Attempt to Retrieve Car From Idaho Canyon

Thu August 03, 2017
Emily Duke

Kathleen Hansen says along the canyon rim in Twin Falls, ID, there's always something to see.

"I've seen deer, and two weeks ago I watched the fire department practicing rescue off the cliff," she said.

But Wednesday the thing to see was a little more obvious.

"When I got here today and I see this crane, I thought wow. I can delay my walk a bit to see," she said.

And she wasn't the only one. All morning people stopped to see what was going on at the canyon edge.

"You see that crane from a long way away," Hansen said.

Crews from Marky's Super Tow were called in to pull a car from the bottom that wrecked more than a year ago.

They had a plan, but they needed some backup.

"We sold our crane so we had Barclay come in and help us," said Mark Gardoski.

From the canyon overlook it seems simple enough. You go down, you pick it up, you bring it out. But when they got crews down there, they realized that the terrain is really rocky and it's not as easy as they thought it would be.

"It's steeper, it's slipperier," said Rick Hall, owner of Barclay Crane Services. "What looks like 20 feet up here is actually 80-100 foot straight drop off down there."

"There was rock ledges on the way up that it would just tear the cable up," Gardoski said.

So they brought their guys back up to reevaluate the situation, deciding the safety of their crews was just too important.

"It's not worth it to even try it and have something go wrong," Hall said.

Now they're back to square one, meeting with the fire department to come up with other ways to get the car from the bottom.

"We're going to get with the city and see what they want to do," Gardoski said.

But one thing is for sure, "It's not coming out today. We wish it was but it's not," Gardoski said.

Source: KMVT 11