By Michael Hasch
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review
MCKEESPORT, Pa. — Former McKeesport fire Chief Fred Bray mailed the final payment for his sport utility vehicle yesterday morning on his way to work. Several hours later, he watched as it was hauled away on a flatbed after being struck by a boulder that tumbled onto Route 30.
“I’m blessed to be alive,” said Bray, who was bruised and sore. The slide occurred shortly after 4 p.m. on Route 30, also known as Ardmore Boulevard, on the border between Forest Hills and North Braddock.
“If anybody would have been in the passenger seat — my wife, my daughter, anybody — he or she would be dead,” he said.
Bray was driving a 2005 Cadillac Escalade EXT, an SUV with a pickup truck cargo bed.
“The boulder was bigger than a regular SUV. I could have been killed. This big, heavy truck saved me,” said Bray, who served 38 years as a McKeesport firefighter — the last 10 as chief — before retiring on Jan. 31, 2005.
He bought the truck two weeks later, “a last gift to myself on my retirement.”
Bray was driving to his job at a state liquor store in Braddock Hills when he dropped off the last payment at the post office.
“I was driving home ... when I saw the hillside moving out of the corner of my eye,” he said. “By the time I glanced over, the boulder and the hillside came down on me.”
The boulder crashed into the passenger side of Bray’s vehicle, forcing it from the right lane into the passing lane. Rocks, dirt and debris came pouring through the windshield.
“I didn’t panic. I took my time. I realized I was OK. I wasn’t hurt too bad. I wasn’t dead,” Bray said.
The slide — which may have been caused by the thawing ground and heavy rains — forced authorities to close one lane of Route 30 for a few hours.
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