One minute you are on a nice family drive to your favorite vacation spot on the Jersey Shore, the next you are catapulting your Toyota RAV4 through the air like a long lost Duke brother. The latter half of that sentence happened to be the case for the Naphy family when they were forced tolaunch their family RAV4 off a drawbridge on the Middle Thorofare Bridge in Cape May county New Jersey.
According to reports, Terence Naphy, his wife, daughter and daughter's friend were heading to Cape May for a nice vacation when the drawbridge began to rise. Fearing the extreme incline at full tilt would cause the RAV4 to plummet 65 feet to the water below, Naphy gunned the little SUV and jumped the gap to the rest of the bridge, three to six feet below. Fortunately, none of the occupants suffered any injury, but the RAV4 sustained over $10,000 in damage (which we can only assume is a bent frame).
Lower Township Police spoke with the bridge operator and he informed them the large fishing vessel crossing under the bridge had radio issues and he had glare in his eyes while operating the bridge. As you can probably already assume, the Cape May County Bridge Commission is chalking this incident up to operator error and they plan to investigate the whole thing. No word on whether or not the Naphy family will have their repair expenses paid, but Terence Naphy made it very clear he, "will never ever drive that bridge or probably any drawbridge again." Fair dude...fair.