Oklahoma Firefighters Recall Water Rescue

May 14—Minutes ticked by one by one, each minute filling the vehicle with more icy rain water, further trapping two women and a 6-year-old girl.

For more than 40 minutes, the three watched the water level continue to rise around them. Before they knew it, there was only a foot of breathing space left in the large, white SUV that first responders had a hard time finding.

A 911 call placed May 6 begins with the women and child panicked as they yell to dispatchers for help. Over the course of the nearly 45-minute call, the three continue to panic, believing the icy water will overtake the vehicle and they will drown.

And that's what nearly happened.

Not knowing a nearby cross street, the only location they could give was Interstate 35 and Indian Hills Road. After a small tornado struck the area May 6, interstate traffic had slowed and Indian Hills Road seemed like a good option at the time.

Rapid rainfall had caused the roadway to flood, and the SUV was swept away by the swift water and taken off the roadway, eventually floating back into a wooded area, far past the culvert off Indian Hills Road and Eastern Avenue. The vehicle was located 50 to 75 yards off the road, Assistant Fire Chief Travis King said.

Norman firefighters helped several people, thinking they saved the trapped victims, only to hear back from dispatch that the females were still trapped.

"So they think that they've got it resolved and our dispatch keeps coming back and saying, 'No, we're still on the phone with them. They've got a foot of air space left and they can't get windows and doors open and they're afraid they're going to drown,'" King said.

Somehow, miraculously, King said the firefighters then heard a banging sound.

"You had roaring water, we were dealing with high winds, hail, another tornado hit us while we were there, and so the noise itself -- I don't know how he heard what he heard, but he did and that zeroed them in," King said. "They started focusing on getting to that vehicle."

Firefighter Aaron Easter said he remembers hearing the banging sound. It was hard to describe, almost like someone banging against a dashboard, but one of the women had found a paint can and was banging it on the car window.

Already having traveled into chest-high water and running into swift waters, somehow hearing the banging noise, the firefighters got lucky again and free floated directly to the vehicle.

"So all you can see is trees and water rushing underneath the trees, and we free float toward where we hear that sound, and it's like chief said, 'God had so much of a hand in this because we came right to where they were.' We came right to the car," Easter said.

Once they got to the vehicle, all they could see was about a foot of glass and the roof rack. The rest of the vehicle was under water. Easter said they had a window punch with them and used it on the glass windows.

King said the three were minutes away from drowning. They were pressed against the back window of the SUV trying to suck the remaining inches of air left just before the window was punched out.

"We punched the glass out and there was three faces right there," he said. "You could tell that they were cold and they were ready to get out of there. They were coming out almost as soon as the glass was broken."

At that time, communication became a problem, as radios were washed out or under water. The firefighters could be heard yelling to their captain on the 911 call, telling him they were able to get all three victims out of the vehicle.

Then they waited on the back of the vehicle and another tornado was on its way.

Firefighter Chad Woodard said one woman was pretty hypothermic and lethargic. They were doing everything they could to keep all three of them talking.

"We were all shivering," Woodard said. "You could feel the entire car just vibrating from us shivering."

Easter said they probably waited on the back of the vehicle for about an hour before Moore showed up to assist with three of their own firefighters and three more Norman firefighters arrived. The boat was not motorized, but they were able to get it to them nonetheless.

"Moore has a boat just like ours. It doesn't have a motor, but we were able to tether it and with three guys on each side. Those three guys are fighting, pushing, swimming, pulling, following ropes and just muscling our way in to get these three guys," King said.

After they got the two women and the 6-year-old girl off the vehicle, the rescuers waited.

"There came a point I think that the victims had already left when that second storm came through," Easter said. "I might be wrong, but when I noticed that it was raining and hailing and the wind was blowing, the victims had already taken off.

"That's just when I noticed it, but that's when it got a little bit eerie just standing on the back of that truck, waiting for another rescue boat to come."

Deputy Fire Chief Jim Bailey said he thinks that was probably about the time a second tornado hit the area.

Firefighters continued to work throughout the night responding to water rescues due to the massive flooding.

When roadways begin to flood, Bailey said motorists should never drive into high water.

"If you can't see the road, don't drive through it," he said. ""They'll put barricades up and when the water recedes; people think, well, they can just go ahead and drive over it."

The city has to inspect those roadways after the water has receded to make sure the roadway didn't fail. In this event, a roadway failed on Indian Hills Road and 36th Avenue, Bailey said.

The situation firefighters faced that Wednesday night was certainly a unique one.

"This is one of those events in a firefighter's career where they won't have many events to where you're looking certain death in the face," Bailey said. "And the reason why i say that is because these girls were in this car and they were probably moments away from the water going over top of the vehicle and them drowning."

Bailey said firefighters respond to car accidents where people are injured or killed, go to fires where people are burned up and lives have already been lost, but an event like this doesn't occur often.

"It's rare that you have somebody there on an incident that's actually, that you know, has imminent death coming their way," he said.

It was a changing environment, as well. A burning building doesn't move and roadways where accidents occur don't move, but this was swift-moving water, King said.

The firefighters had recently done a refresher course on swift-water rescues about two months prior to the incident, which they believe worked in their favor. Easter said they learned some things from the rescue to hopefully make the next swift-water rescue go a lot better, should the event occur.

With the possibility of more rain and more severe weather on the way, the potential for another incident like this is out there.

Firefighters who aided in the rescue of the three females included Capt. Mark Castell, driver Ben Williams Kopeck, firefighters Chad Woodard and Aaron Easter, and Assistant Chief Travis King, who helped out at the command post and eventually on scene.

Copyright 2015 - The Norman Transcript, Okla.