Man rescued from Spokane River tells firefighters his wife is still out there

A man found clinging to a branch in the Spokane River was rescued by firefighters Thursday morning. Though he said he’d crashed into the river in a car with his wife, searchers were unable to find either and authorities raised concerns about “multiple inconsistencies” in his story.

A passerby heard the man screaming at about 9:20 a.m. and led rescuers to his location west of the T.J. Meenach Bridge. The man, a 27-year-old from Montana, told rescuers he was asleep in a car with his wife driving when the vehicle crashed and rolled into the river.

“He remembers waking up upside-down in the car and the car flooding with water,” said Brian Schaeffer, assistant chief of the Spokane Fire Department.

The man had extreme hypothermia and was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where he was in critical condition, Schaeffer said. The man told investigators that he believes his vehicle crashed about 1 a.m. but doesn’t know where.

The man gave investigators several variations of his story during the day, and hours of searching the river by boat failed to turn up his wife or the car, Schaeffer said. The search has been called off.

No one has been able to confirm that a crash occurred, but they were able to confirm that the man’s wife was seen at a local hospital and released around 3 a.m., Schaeffer said. Her husband was with her at the time, which means the couple could not have crashed in the river at 1 a.m. as the man originally said.

“At this point the investigation is stalled because of the multiple inconsistencies in the victim’s story,” Schaeffer said.

Reporter Nina Culver contributed to this report.