Balancing Act

By Sr. Agent Dylan Bertrand

One dark evening Sgt. Darby and I were working late in Vermilion Bay. It was one of those nights that seemed to drag on forever. After patrolling the entire bay and seeing not a single boat, Sgt. Darby decided to stop and listen for any boats that may be running without running lights. I had just commented on the calm water conditions and the deafening silence when we heard an extremely loud crash. We looked around and saw a set of truck lights on a nearby bridge. The lights were stationary so we figured someone had crashed into the bridge. When we got close enough we saw that a truck had hit the guard rail on the bridge, or so we thought. After climbing up to the bridge we saw a man stumbling around looking at his truck. His truck was balancing on top of the metal guard rail. He had climbed the rail where it met the ground and rode it nearly across the whole bridge. The man stated that he was just going fishing and that he needed to get to his boat. A local sheriff’s deputy arrived and informed Sgt. Darby and I that the state police was in route. The man stumbled around asking the deputy to give him a ride to his boat. Once the state trooper arrived it was clear that the driver of the truck was going to get a ride, but it wasn’t going to be to his boat.