 |
 |
 |
| On May 9, the freighter Summit Venture slammed into the old Sunshine Skyway bridge, knocking out a 1,200-foot chunk of its center. Thirty-five people plummeted to their deaths. Gulfport truck driver Wesley MacIntire, the only person who went over the edge and lived to tell about it, never got over the guilt of having survived. He died of bone cancer in 1989. Richard Hornbuckle, who stopped his Buick inches from the edge, became a close friend of MacIntire and his wife, Betty. Now in his late 70s, Hornbuckle, of St. Petersburg, has never granted interviews about the accident. “He just doesn’t want to keep remembering,” Betty MacIntire says.
• ON THE BRINK |
© Copyright 1999 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.