Police body camera video shows how first responders rescued a woman and two children trapped inside an SUV submerged during flooding in Maryland.
A Montgomery County police officer found the SUV fully underwater, with children inside screaming.
District 2 officers entered raging floodwaters near Bradley Boulevard in Potomac on Thursday afternoon. The water was moving so fast it could have pulled down the officers and drowned them.
Cpr. Megan Wyatt found the nightmare scene and was quickly joined by Officer Chris Aversa and Sgt. Gary Guard. A man also rushed there after he got a call from his frantic wife. She was calling from inside the submerged car. She had their 2-year-old with her, as well as a boy for whom she works as a nanny.
The woman’s husband had the call on speaker.
The officers knew members of the Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service were on their way. They also knew seconds could mean life or death.
Wyatt and Aversa walked into the water. It was full of debris and tree limbs and rushing with such force that each step was a struggle to stay upright. If they went down, they could be swept away.
“As soon as I got there, Corporal Wyatt was like, ‘We’re going in.’ And I was like, ‘OK, well, you’re not going alone,’” Aversa said.
They kept going because of what they could hear on the father’s phone.
“They were screaming for help when I first showed up, and once that car got taken down the ravine, the screaming stopped, so obviously the worst thing crossed my mind,” Wyatt said. “As we were yelling over the PA system, the screaming started up again.”
Just as the officers realized they didn’t have enough rope to get to the submerged vehicle, they sight they desperately needed to see appeared: a Montgomery County Fire & Rescue crew.
By then, a boy who had been trapped in the SUV made it onto its roof.
Fire & Rescue personnel used a pole to measure the depth of the water, made their way to the vehicle and got everyone out safely.
Another car with children inside also was swamped after the driver entered the floodwaters, police said.
Sgt. Guard urged caution.
“Our biggest message to the community right now is to turn around. Don’t drown. Don’t enter the water if you can’t see the roadway. We don’t want anybody else to put themselves in danger and be a victim,” he said.
A fourth police department colleague, Officer Shereen Abdelhamed, had stayed alongside the terrified father and was able to share the news that everyone had been rescued.
As firefighters escorted the drenched and shivering occupants to a waiting ambulance, the frightened crying of the 2-year-old rose above the sound of the rushing water. It was a welcome sound to first responders. It meant he was alive. Everyone was alive.
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