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You wish to God you could have been there.

Like this?

Well, no, as it turns out; not unless I had a cutting torch along. They were locked inside, like prisoners.

Condemned prisoners.

Officer Says Troop Door Was Locked On Overturned Stryker

December 11, 2003

By KOMO Staff & News Services

TACOMA - A rear troop door on one of two Army combat vehicles that overturned and fell into an Iraqi irrigation canal had been unintentionally left padlocked, the unit commander says.

Three of the 19 soldiers inside the two Strykers died and a fourth was injured, but the padlock did not prevent anyone capable of escaping from doing so, Col. Michael E. Rounds told The News Tribune of Tacoma for a report published Thursday.

The Department of Defense on Thursday identified the dead soldiers as Staff Sgt. Steven H. Bridges, 33, of Tracy, Calif.; Spc. Joseph M. Blickenstaff, 23, of Corvallis, Ore.; and Spc. Christopher J. Rivera Wesley, 26, of Portland, Ore.

They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Lewis near Tacoma.

Brigade officials said eight to 10 shots were fired Wednesday night at soldiers guarding the accident site on a road northeast of Ad Duluiyah, Iraq. No one was injured and the soldiers were unable to find whoever fired the shots.

Divers were summoned for an attempt on Thursday to recover weapons and night vision devices that are believed to be in the murky water, officials said.

The accident occurred Monday night when an embankment collapsed. Two Strykers landed upside down in the canal with only their wheels above the surface.

At least one soldier was saved by a squad leader who re-entered his submerged Stryker and pulled out two soldiers, officials said.

One of the two was revived through cardiopulmonary resuscitation and is recovering in an Army hospital. The other died, as did two soldiers in the other Stryker.

There were few obvious signs of damage to the Strykers, but "there is significant water damage to the inside, and that affects the electronics," Lt. Col. Joseph Piek said. "The vehicles will have to dry out, and then we'll have to examine the damage from the water."

The rear hatch door in one of the submerged vehicles was locked to protect against theft while the vehicles were in a northbound convoy from Kuwait, and a vehicle commander forgot to remove the lock before going on patrol, Rounds said.

Both Strykers landed upside down, leaving about a 6-inch pocket of air inside, enough for those inside to breathe as they found their way out to safety, according to a preliminary report cited by The News Tribune.

Their exit routes were not immediately clear. The Stryker has four roof hatches, one for the driver and an emergency escape hatch about midway along the driver's side.

The injured soldier was moved out of intensive care Wednesday at the 21st Combat Support Hospital in Balad, Iraq, and could return to the unit within three days, officials said.

A memorial ceremony for the three who died is scheduled for noon Friday at the brigade's base camp.

Pvt. Bryan Hall, a sharpshooter, told his mother, Winnie O'Connor, in a call to her home in Vine Grove, Ky., that he was in one of the Strykers and barely survived, The Seattle Times reported Thursday.

In a five-minute call early Tuesday, Hall said he crawled desperately through the submerged vehicle as water gushed inside, finally finding a small pocket of air and tearing off his Kevlar helmet so he could cock his head to keep breathing, O'Connor said.

"He told me that he got air in his lungs and started praying," she said. "He said, 'This is not why I was sent here."'

Hall said other soldiers from the 12-vehicle patrol needed two pair of bolt cutters to free a rear hatch door and get him to safety, his mother said.

Rounds said he and the Army's top commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, met with the soldiers involved in the accident.

"They're doing fine," Rounds said. "We've got to see to their needs but at the same time help them get back to the fight. That's what they want."

A three-person team from the Army's Safety Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., has been sent to investigate the accident.

The brigade left Fort Lewis last month on its first deployment with the new vehicles. The deaths are the first involving any of the 300 medium-weight vehicles, each costing $2 million, since the first entered service about a year and a half ago.