Wesley C. MacIntire; Sole Survivor of Bridge Disaster

Wesley C. MacIntire, 65, the sole survivor of Florida’s 1980 Sunshine Skyway Bridge disaster. Thirty-five motorists were pitched to their deaths in Tampa Bay when a freighter rammed the bridge, toppling a 1,400-foot section of steel-and-concrete roadway. MacIntire, a Gulfport, Fla., resident, was driving across the bridge on his way to work the morning of May 9, 1980, when the Summit Venture smashed into the southbound span. MacIntire’s pickup truck rode the bridge down. It bounced off the bow of the ship, breaking his 150-foot fall, then dropped backward into the water. He was quickly pulled from the wreckage by the ship’s crew. The tragedy haunted MacIntire. “It was hard for him to talk about it,” said his daughter, Donna L. Robbins. “He would get hurt over some of the reactions people would give him . . . because his injuries were not so severe, because he didn’t suffer that much. . . .” In Gulfport on Saturday of bone cancer.