Highway Maintenance Technician II

Department of Transportation

3/4/1971

Special Act Award (Gold)

On March 4, 1971, at 8 a.m., Highway Maintenance Technician II Bernard O. Arney, helped save the life of a woman stranded in the Smith River near Crescent City. Mr. Arney was driving his pickup truck west en route to an assignment down Highway 199 when he noticed skid marks and a reflector post knocked down. Mr. Arney stopped, and went to the edge of the road. Earlier, a 72-year-old Fremont, CA woman was driving east approximately 20 miles from the junction with Highway 101 north of Crescent City. Her passenger was a 24-year-old woman. The women’s car traveled over a narrow, twisting portion of Highway 199. The pavement was slick from the falling rain and snow. Rounding one sharp corner the car went out of control and plummeted over the bank and into the icy, fast moving Smith River. The vehicle was sideways in the river and the younger woman was clinging to the top of the passenger side door yelling for help. The current was pulling her downstream. Mr. Arney heard her say that she was slipping and couldn’t hang on much longer. He sprinted back up the bank and stopped the first passing car and told the driver to go to Gasquet, call the Highway Patrol, an ambulance and wrecker, and send his foreman, Chuck Hafley to the scene. Mr. Arney then stopped two truckers and asked for a rope. Mr. Arney raced down the bank again. He tied the rope around his chest, dove into the river upstream from the car, and let the current sweep him down to the vehicle. He clambered onto the trunk, over the roof, and dropped down next to the 24-year-old woman, who by this time was about to go under. Mr. Arney grabbed her, put the rope under her arms, got back on top of the car, and hauled up on the rope, while trying to keep her mouth above water. Mr. Arney asked the woman if she could swim, she answered “no, not a stroke”. Sensing her strength was about to give out, he directed her to take a deep breath, and hold it, assuring her that she would be back on shore by the time she needed to take another breath. Mr. Arney was ready to have the men on shore tug her to safety, but then found the rope was snagged and they couldn’t pull her safely. Just then Foreman Chuck Hafley arrived on the scene, donned a wet suit, fixed a second rope to himself and swam out to help Mr. Arney. Mr. Hafley held the woman up while Mr. Arney freed the first rope. The other men on shore pulled and she came out; unfortunately, the woman’s older driving companion did not survive the plunge into the river.