'Grace of God’: FedEx driver shares survival story after 75-foot fall from I-85 bridge

ROWAN COUNTY, N.C. — Channel 9 spoke Monday with the good Samaritan who survived a 75-foot plunge off Interstate 85 in Rowan County last week.

FedEx driver Jeremiah Cribb, 24, pulled over to help a disabled driver on the Yadkin River Bridge last Wednesday, but when a tractor-trailer came speeding toward him, he had to jump out of the way and over a wall -- thinking there was a grass median a few feet below.

Instead, he plummeted.

"I hopped over and I heard wind,” Cribb told reporter Tina Terry in an exclusive interview. “I didn't have time to think. As I was falling, I was looking up and that’s all I could do was look up. I didn't have time to put something in my mind to process it, even though it was a long fall."

'I just thank God I?m alive?: FedEx worker helping stranded driver falls 75 feet off Salisbury bridge, survives 'I just thank God I?m alive?: FedEx worker helping stranded driver falls 75 feet off Salisbury bridge, survives

An emergency worker snapped a photo of Cribb lying on a sandbar below.

"It’s the grace of God, you know,” Cribb told Terry. “That’s all I can think.”

He said he thinks he blacked out. When he woke up, he said he was in pain and could barely breathe.

RAW: Interview with Cribb RAW: Interview with Cribb

"I looked up and I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s a bridge. I just jumped from a bridge?’” Cribb said.

He was able to stand up and crews used a rope to hoist him up to safety. He thought of Bible scripture Jeremiah 29:11 while he was under the bridge.

“For the plans I think toward you are good. Plans to prosper and not to harm,” he said. "Wow. I fell 75 feet. I missed logs. I missed water, rocks. No broken bones.”

Emergency workers said the semi-truck missed the stalled car, and no one else on the roadway was injured.

Cribb was taken to the hospital with fractured ribs and a partially collapsed lung before being released two days later.

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