By Irene Wright
The Charlotte Observer
PALM COAST, Fla. — Three people were pulled to safety in an intense rescue after a wreck that sent their vehicle off the road and into a flooded ditch, Florida deputies said.
On Jan. 5, two adults and a small child, whose ages were not released, were involved in a car accident that caused their vehicle to slide down into a ditch filled with water near Palm Coast, according to a Jan. 10 Facebook post from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.
“When deputies arrived, they found a dazed and bleeding male outside of the vehicle and noticed that an adult female and small child in a car seat were still trapped inside the vehicle just above water,” deputies said in the post.
The next few minutes were crucial.
The sheriff’s office shared body camera footage of the rescue on Facebook.
Two deputies rush to the vehicle that was teetering on its side in the ditch, airbags deployed and windows closed, the video shows.
They yell out to the woman and child inside.
The deputies hear voices from inside the vehicle and use their lights to look inside.
The woman was bleeding badly, one deputy is heard saying into her radio, and both her head and the child’s are barely above the water as it creeps into the vehicle.
One deputy uses a tool to break the back passenger window and reach into the vehicle, but the child is just out of reach.
That’s when the Palm Coast Fire Department arrives.
With one deputy holding the vehicle door open, a firefighter steps up to the vehicle, then climbs inside and pulls the child to safety.
Rescuing the woman would be harder.
She was alert and breathing, rescuers say in the video, but she was trapped near the bottom of the vehicle and too injured to pull herself out.
Firefighters bring a ladder to the vehicle and make a bridge between the embankment and the open door, the video shows.
The firefighter inside the vehicle pulls the woman to the back door, to be placed on the backboard and pulled to safety.
“All occupants were transported to AdventHealth-Palm Coast for treatment and the crash investigation was turned over to Florida Highway Patrol ,” the sheriff’s office said.
Deputies did not disclose the current condition of the woman or child.
Palm Coast is about 60 miles south of Jacksonville.
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