“Water is getting into the car!” Florida congressman saves teenager from sinking car

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Video released Wednesday by the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office shows a car sinking after being driven into a pond, shortly after two teenagers were rescued from the vehicle.

SJCSO said an officer rescued the two teens from the sinking car on Holmes Boulevard near Deer Run Road around 5 a.m. Saturday morning.

A sheriff’s office spokesman said everyone is OK. Deputies’ body-worn video shows the car sinking.

“Please hurry, there’s water coming into the car!” one of the people in the car said as they called 911.

According to SJSO, the driver and passenger were 18-year-old females. With the help of Deputy Jayde Glines, they escaped the car in the pond Saturday morning. Glines said she fell into the water, which she later found out was about 20 feet deep.

“Mom mode came on and I thought, ‘Okay, let me get in the water and figure out how either A swims to them and gets them out or B comes up with the idea of ​​making some sort of connection between them together,” Giles said.

Body-worn video from the sheriff’s office shows the car quickly sinking after most of it is submerged.

“When the passenger let go of the car, the car completely crashed, it was gone,” Glines said. “So it happened very, very quickly.”

Glines said she held onto a tree branch in waist-deep water and told the teens to fold their arms together.

“I told them, ‘Hey, I’m going to grab your hand, you grab your friend’s hand and I’m going to pull you to me,'” Giles said. “They were definitely in shock. It was freezing cold. “I think it was the coldest morning we’ve had here in St. Augustine at that time.”

But they were safe. According to AAA, submerged vehicle accidents have the highest fatality rate. They say to remember the acronym “SURE”: Keep calm, unbuckle your seatbelt, roll down the window and get out.

AAA recommends keeping a vehicle escape tool that can cut the seat belt and break the window. AAA recommends that you do not wait for the vehicle to fill with water, but rather get out as quickly as possible.

Glines told me to call 911 immediately; A first responder like her will help.

“We want to save lives,” she said.

The SJSO spokesman said he believes exhaustion was one of the causes of the crash.