Dramatic footage has captured the moment a firefighter was lowered by rope to rescue a truck driver from a cab left dangling over the edge of an elevated highway in Kentucky. The semi-truck crashed on Interstate 65 just south of Louisville’s Kennedy Bridge on Sunday morning, leaving the front of the vehicle suspended around 20 feet above Interstates 64 and 71 below, according to Captain Donovan Sims of the Louisville Fire Department.

Emergency crews arrived within minutes to find the cab teetering over the edge, with its trailer jackknifed behind it. A specialist rope team quickly assembled a rig to allow a rescuer to rappel down to the cab and reach the trapped driver. Video released by the department shows the firefighter being carefully lowered before helping the driver into a harness and lifting them both to safety in a tense and coordinated operation.

The dramatic rescue took roughly 30 minutes and was completed without major injury. The driver was taken to a local hospital as a precaution but was reported to be physically unharmed.

In a series of 911 calls released after the crash, the driver can be heard begging for help. He told the dispatcher: "Will you guys please help me, I’m about to... I’m about to fall down from the bridge.

"I’m just hanging over the bridge, I don’t want to die. I’m really afraid to move in the truck right now. Please help me."

The operator urged him to stay still, assuring him that emergency teams were on their way. Asked whether the entire truck had gone over the edge, the driver replied: "I just see the road down beneath me, that’s all I can see."

Authorities have not confirmed what caused the crash, and an investigation is ongoing.

The incident comes just over a year after another truck driver was rescued in similar circumstances from the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge, which also connects Louisville to southern Indiana.

In that case, the female driver was left hanging over the Ohio River for more than 40 minutes before being pulled to safety.

The recurrence of such high-risk rescues has raised new concerns about the safety of elevated sections of highway in the Louisville area, particularly for heavy goods vehicles.

Local officials have not yet said whether additional safety measures will be introduced following Sunday’s near miss.