When Derrick Hankerson hit a slick spot while driving to work Friday morning, he managed to regain control before his car went careering over the Michigan Avenue Bridge and into the Chicago River.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Hankerson silently thanked himself for buying a new set of tires.
Then he looked into his rear-view mirror and watched the taxicab behind him go into a tailspin.
He realized others weren`t so lucky.
”I saw one body go over the edge,” Hankerson said. ”I just knew there were dead people behind me.”
Though no one was seriously injured, the cab`s spinout caused it to strike four pedestrians and push two of them over the bridge railing.
Sue, a 38-year-old Flossmoor resident, was walking to work when she saw the cab plow into the morning rush-hour crowd on the construction-clogged bridge.
Sue, who would give no further identification, grabbed a pedestrian by the hand and held on as the woman dangled over the edge.
”The taxi just flew into the crowd,” Sue said later, wiping away tears with shaking hands. ”Then I was holding her arm as she went over the edge. I can`t believe I`m standing here talking. By the grace of God, it could have been me.”
Meanwhile, construction worker Joe Weber sat in his motorboat in the river.
Each day, Weber said, he sits and waits, sits and waits, ready to rescue the co-worker unlucky enough to take a plunge into the green river.
After a month of idleness, Weber was finally called to action when 15-year-old Letrice Moreno, of the North Side, was sent plunging 32 feet into the Chicago River.
”I heard some commotion on the other side,” Weber said Friday afternoon, pointing to the west side of the bridge. ”I didn`t think it was anything. Then one of the guys yelled, `Woman in the water.”`
Weber geared up his outboard motor and zoomed over.
”The girl said she couldn`t swim, but she was doing pretty good out there,” Weber said. ”She was really distraught. She could see her mother`s purse and her aunt`s shoe in the water, and she thought they were in there.” Witnesses said a man on shore threw a rope into the river, but Weber pulled her into his boat before she could reach the rope.
When rescue workers escorted the drenched Moreno to an ambulance, she was still clutching her purse.
Hankerson said the morning`s events resulted from a strange twist of fate.
”I really feel compassion for that taxi driver,” Hankerson said. ”It could have been me.”
The cabbie, Abdulai Okunuga, was traveling south on Michigan Avenue about 8:40 a.m. when he lost control of his taxicab, according to East Chicago District Sgt. Richard Hansen. He was not injured in the accident.
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Letrice Moreno suffered injuries to her left hip, thigh and knee, and was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for observation, hospital spokesman Daniel Parker said.
Her mother, Consuelo, 40, was treated for a broken clavicle, and her cousin, Consuelo DeLeon, 24, of Chicago, was treated for minor injuries and released, according to Parker. Mary Eck, 31, of Wheaton, who is five months`
pregnant, was admitted for overnight observation.
Officials are not sure which woman was rescued by Sue.
Okunuga was cited for driving too fast for the road conditions.
Weber, meanwhile, said he is ”absolutely not” a hero. The accident meant nothing more than an opportunity for him to do his job.
”What is a hero?” Weber said. ”Somebody who risks his life? All I did was motor over there and pull her out of the water.”