Teen narrowly avoids deadly fall off of bridge after car crash

A New Hampshire teen avoided a deep plunge into a river after a wreck, narrowly escaping from his car as it teetered perilously on the guardrail of a bridge, authorities say.

Colin Malone, 17, lost control of his car Saturday afternoon in Nashua, struck a snow mound and was “pitched in the air before coming to rest on the railing of the Sagamore Bridge above the Merrimack River,” according to a statement on the New Hampshire Trooper’s Association’s Facebook page.

Depending on the swell of the river, the drop could be anywhere from 50 feet to 75 feet, Capt. Kevin Grebinar of the Hudson Fire Department told CNN. Images on the trooper’s association Facebook page show Malone’s Honda Accord straddling the rail, suspended ominously along the side of a snowy roadway, facing the opposite direction of traffic.

“He was out (of the car) by time responders arrived; he had self-extricated,” Grebinar said. Malone was not injured and not taken to a hospital, he added.

Malone may have cheated death, but he was slapped with a citation.

The trooper’s association said Malone “failed to keep his vehicle within the roadway markings.”

Police did not expect drugs or alcohol to have played a role in this incident.