Picture by: Weartv
NAVARRE, Fla. — Florida Highway Patrol says a mom and son were pulled out of a car submerged in a retention pond near an apartment complex in Navarre last night.
One of the bystanders was an Air Force pilot who lives right next to where it happened.
He says he heard the tires screech and ran downstairs to jump into the water.
“I just kept thinking to myself, ‘They’re drowning in there and I need to get in and see what I can do,'” Hurlburt Field US Air Force Pilot Christian Munoz said.
“As I come around the corner to my left, I see the lights of the vehicle and I come to the fence,” he added. “As I got to the fence, two other bystanders were on their way coming from my right. I immediately jumped over the fence and on top of the vehicle just to see what was going on.”
Florida Highway Patrol reports that a black sedan with a woman and a 12-year-old boy lost control on Elevate Avenue, hit the fence, and flipped into the retention pond.
Munoz says the car was in five feet of water.
He says he was feeling for windows and doors when other people jumped into the water to help.
“They eventually got the woman out first,” Munoz said. “They put her in the car and started working on her.”
Munoz was finally able to free the boy from the car.
“We put the child on top of the vehicle and where I began to perform CPR and by God’s grace, the child began to breathe again,” Munoz said.
Holley – Navarre Fire Captain Howie Rounsaville says that’s when first responders got to the scene.
“We came up with the plan to utilize the ladders to make it to the victims and then from the process of evaluating each patient from the most severe to the least and removing the patients that way,” Rounsaville said.
He says if people didn’t step in to help, things could have turned out differently.
“They would have been submerged probably a little bit longer than necessary,” Rounsaville said. “We would have been doing CPR like they were doing prior to our arrival, and we would have had to remove the victims from the vehicle and provide care on the sidewalk we’re at right now, it could possibly have been a different outcome because of the time being in the water.”
Time was Munoz and the other residents’ main focus.
“When it comes to people who are stuck in a vehicle underwater, every second counts,” Munoz said.
Officials say the victims were seriously injured and taken to the hospital.
They’re in stable condition.
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Source: Weartv
