A North Carolina youth bravely rescued a man and woman from drowning just before their truck slid into deep floodwaters.
Kenji “Flash” Bowen, a former standout baseball and football player in high school, was driving home last week with his girlfriend and their baby near Wilmington after a near-tropical storm flooded parts of the state.
Nicknamed “Flash” by teammates at East Columbus High School because of his speed, he needed every bit of it when, after being turned back by flooding on a secondary road, he saw a pickup truck inching along towards the torrent on the opposite side of the road. According to Flash, it looked a lot more like the opposite side of a river.
“We turned down Woodyard Road, and got to the place where it was flooded,” Bowen told Columbus County News. “There was no way I was going through that with my family, so I got ready to turn around.”
“There was a truck pulling into the water from the other side, and I tried to flash my lights at him to tell him to stop, but I guess he didn’t see me.”
Though the man from nearby Kelly realized he couldn’t make it through the water, he was too late, and his tires began to spin while reversing as the water gradually shifted the car to the side. The truck started to float towards a ditch on the side of the roadway where the water was much deeper—then began to sink.
The young father then lept into the water and moved as fast as he could towards the truck. “That water was flowing stronger than anything I had ever seen. I got to the truck and grabbed hold, then started working toward them,” he remembered.
Inside the cab, the man and woman began making the mistake of trying to open the doors, which can’t be done once the car is partially submerged. Bowen helped the woman crawl out through the window, where Bowen’s girlfriend Caitlyn was waiting to help her make it up the grassy bank to dry land.
Bowen then went back to rescue the man and his dog—both through the window as the car was sinking.
Though a standout athlete, Bowen has no interest in swimming, and generally doesn’t like deep water, he said laughing.
In such situations, the faster one realizes the car is a coffin, the greater their chances for survival. As soon as your car hits the water, immediately unbuckle your seatbelt and try to get out through the window as it can often still be rolled down.
The door won’t open if it’s even partially submerged as the water pressure is too much to push through. The best place to kick a window that won’t open is near the top of the window pane, and the metal prong of the headrest can provide a tool that might help break it.
If the window isn’t opening or breaking, the door can be opened only when the whole car is submerged and filled with water. Steady your breathing, but don’t try to get out immediately—Mythbusters demonstrated that even after the driver is fully underwater, the equalization of the pressure in the car needed for the door to be openable took 1 minute and 51 seconds.
Fortunately, for the couple and their dog, “Flash” Bowen was faster than the surging water.