By MANUEL VALDES and MIKE BAKER, From Yahoo News

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. – Dan Sligh and his wife were in their pickup truck on Interstate 5 heading to a camping trip when a bridge before them disappeared in a “big puff of dust.”

“I hit the brakes and we went off,” Sligh told reporters from a hospital, adding he “saw the water approaching … you hold on as tight as you can.”

Sligh, his wife and another man in a different vehicle were dumped into the chilly waters of the Skagit River when the span collapsed Thursday evening. They were injured, but miraculously, authorities said it appeared nobody was killed in the bridge failure that raised the question about the safety of aging spans and cut off the main route between Seattle and Canada.

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“We don’t think anyone else went into the water,” said Marcus Deyerin, a spokesman for the Northwest Washington Incident Management Team. “At this point we’re optimistic.”

Sligh and his wife were taken to Skagit Valley Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The other man was reported in stable condition at United General Hospital in Sedro-Woolley, hospital CEO Greg Reed said.

Authorities are trying to determine what caused the bridge to collapse about 60 miles north of Seattle in Skagit County.

State Patrol detectives and the patrol’s commercial vehicle enforcement bureau troopers spoke to a commercial truck driver whose rig struck the structure.

For more on this story and to watch the video of survivor of bridge collapse go to:

http://news.yahoo.com/5-bridge-collapse-survivor-hold-084110788.html