Hard landing for Winona County daredevils who attempted to jump pickup over trailer
“Evel Knievel must be shaking his head.
The first indication was the 911 call placed to Winona County dispatch over the weekend, which cut out just after the voice at the other end whimpered, “It hurts …”
A second call followed shortly, with a location and talk of jumping a rock pile with a motor vehicle, Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude said Tuesday.
Deputies, emergency responders, and the Mayo 1 helicopter were dispatched to a location on County Road 37 between Altura and Elba, where the first indication that something had gone wrong were the empty beer cans “strewn around the property,” Ganrude said.
There was also a heavily damaged, spray-painted 1994 Chevy pickup some distance from a pair of 10-foot-tall dirt ramps built on either side of a small construction trailer.
Inside the truck was a 21-year-old Altura man. “I hurt all over,” he told responders.
The driver, a 25-year-old Rollingstone man who deputies said smelled of alcohol, was uninjured, Ganrude said. A third man, 23, from Dover, complained of a sore back but did not require medical attention.
According to the driver, the three all wore seatbelts and helmets as they lined the truck up with the ramps, accelerated to about 50 mph, and launched themselves and the truck off the ramp and over the trailer — but also over the second ramp, which led to a nose-first hard landing on level ground, Ganrude said.
The Winona County Attorney’s Office is considering charges in the case, but none have been formally filed, so the names of the men have not been released.”
