Bridge Collapse Survivors Tell Their Tales

Aug. 2, 2007 — -- Within seconds, their thoughts went from dinner plans and relieving baby sitters to matters of life and death.

"All I could think of was, 'God, this was not the way I wanted to die,'" survivor Kelly Kahle said to "Good Morning America."

For hundreds of people traveling over the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis when it collapsed, Wednesday night was a living nightmare.

Kahle and her friend Kimberly Brown were in one of the 50 cars that plummeted into the Mississippi River when the bridge collapsed. Luckily, they survived the ordeal to tell their tales.

Every day, more than 140,000 cars pass over the 40-year-old span. Kahle said she knew something was about to happen as they drove across the bridge.

"It felt like it was oscillating a little bit, and we saw the road rise up in front of us before we fell," she said.

In another part of the rubble, new mom Melissa Hughes' car was crushed underneath another car that fell from the broken bridge.

"The sound is gone from my memory," Hughes said, "but the feeling is kind of a free-fall feeling at a amusement-park ride and that it can't be real."

Sitting in her car, Hughes said she felt the impact of a car, but never imagined it was on top of her. While she was trapped, Hughes told "GMA," all she could think about was her 3-month-old daughter, Olivia.

"I wanted her there once I got out," Hughes said. "I wanted to hold her."

And her wish was granted. Shortly after escaping from her car, she was reunited with daughter, thanks to her husband, who brought Olivia to the scene.

Amid the collapsed concrete, many observers' eyes and cameras were immediately drawn to a yellow school bus teetering precariously against one of the guard rails.

"We ran up the incline. There was a school bus full of 8- to 14-year-olds and we literally had to carry them off the bridge," said one survivor who was on the I-35 highway in Minneapolis when it collapsed into the Mississippi River.

There were 61 people on board the bus; 52 of them, children. They were part of an inner-city youth summer program and were on their way back from a day at a water park.