Triston Bailey
Triston Bailey fell 50 feet from the edge of the Margaret McDermott bridge over Interstate 30 in November and landed in the Trinity River floodway.
The 18-year-0ld was returning home from a Dallas Stars game with some friends, and they decided to stop on the side of the highway and take a selfie with the Downtown skyline behind them.
He started to exclaim, but his friends at first thought he was joking around.
Bailey suffered two bruised lungs, a collapsed lung, multiple lacerations to his spleen and pelvic fractures. But doctors at Methodist Dallas Medical Center are amazed that his injuries weren’t worse.
Trauma surgeon Dr. Joseph D. Amos called it “a constellation of miraculous events.”
“One more turn, one more twist. It’s amazing he didn’t snap his neck. It’s amazing that he’s not a paraplegic,” he said in a media conference.
Bailey is in physical therapy, but he’s walking and talking just fine and still plans to join the U.S. Air Force. He says he wanted to come forward in case anyone out there thinks taking a selfie on the side of the bridge is a good idea.
“There’s no explanation for how he survived it,” his mom says.
