The Homer Fire Department and Kachemak Bay Emergency Services responded to a report late Monday morning that a pickup truck had crashed through a guardrail near the Baycrest Hill Overlook Area.
Homer Fire Department Chief Bob Painter said the call came in at about 11:30 a.m. Monday, but authorities received subsequent reports that the guardrail had been broken for a couple of days.
“It was a pickup truck. The chassis of the vehicle was laying on its side about 150 feet down. The cab of vehicle detached and is about another 100 feet below that,” Painter explained.
Responders repelled down the bluff to search the area for any potential victims and fatalities, but did not find any sign of either.
As the search continued, friends of the truck’s possible owner, Ther Watson, stopped and told authorities Watson had fallen asleep at the wheel and only suffered minor injuries.
A friend of Watson’s, Tiffani Couch, was at the scene. According to Couch, Watson had his first child recently and hadn’t been getting much sleep. She adds that Watson had crashed the same truck just a couple of weeks earlier, and she said a friend called her a few days ago to tell her about the most recent crash.
“I got a call from a friend of mine that he showed up there and said he crashed again. Today, I recently got back in Homer and saw it. [I] didn’t think nothing of it until I drove by and saw you guys out here looking for him,” Couch said. “[I] figured we should stop in and say he’s ok and everything. There’s no bodies on the hill.”
Chief Painter said the Homer Police Department is running the license plate to track down the registered owner of the vehicle. Painter notes that it will be the owner’s responsibility to remove to truck.