By Steve Morris

Brad Peters and his cousin, Seth Peters, were stopped on the I-35W bridge in traffic, en route to see their beloved Twins play their 7:10 game against the Kansas City Royals when the unthinkable happened -- the bridge collapsed.

In the blink of an eye, the two were in the middle of one of the worst catastrophe in Twin Cities history.

Brad Peters was driving a 1997 Ford Explorer and was traveling south on I-35W with Seth Peters, a junior at Forest Lake High School. They were at a standstill, in bumper-to-bumper traffic when he felt a "ripple" in the bridge. At that moment, he watched the bridge, and car eight feet in front of them disappear.

Brad Peters said there was about a seven-second delay before the section of the bridge they were on went crashing 60-feet to the street below. The section of the bridge in front of Brad Peters crashed into the Mississippi. He couldn't help but think how lucky he was.

"The whole section fell in one big chunk and the north and south ends of the bridge fell like a domino effect," Peters said.

Amazingly, after smashing into the road below, Brad and Seth were not injured from the fall. Both of them were wearing their seat belts and were able to get out of their cars on their own power.

"The way we landed, the seat belts didn't help that much," Brad Peters said.

After they collected themselves, Brad Peters called his brother who was working in Wyoming at the time to tell him they were OK, and for him to call his parents to tell them the news.

"He didn't understand what I was saying, but I told him I had to go because I had to go help other people."

Ironically, the Ford Explorer Peters was driving was registered under his mothers name and early accounts had her as a person unaccounted for -- soon the problem was cleared.

Once he told family members they were OK, the two climbed out of the car and started helping the wounded. Within a matter of minutes, the place was flooded with first responders. Brad Peters said they helped six or seven people during the ordeal.

Mainly, they took orders from the first responders and tried to keep the injured from moving.

"Once we started helping people, we became more concerned about helping them than about ourselves. I wanted to say we did our best to help as many people as possible," Brad Peters said.

They helped about an hour before officials began ordering all people away from the scene.

Eventually, the two met Seth Peters' parents on the 3rd Avenue bridge. From there, they went to the St. John's Hospital in Maplewood because they thought it would be less busy; they were wrong. They arrived at urgent care around 8:30 p.m. and didn't leave until 1:15 a.m.

As a precaution, they both have scheduled an MRI and have met with a chiropractor to make sure they are OK.

Brad Peters, who graduated from North Branch High School in May, said it may take him some time to adjust to what happened.

"I think I might be a little uneasy going over bridges for a couple of years. I will definitely remember that car in front of me and the whole bridge disappearing," he said.

Peters' car will remain on the bridge until it is released.