5-Year-Old Boy Rescued Alive from Underwater Car After over 10 Minutes Submerged in Lake
Rescuers witnessed a miracle on Sunday when they discovered a 5-year-old boy still alive inside a vehicle that had been underwater for over 10 minutes.
First responders rushed to the scene at Kincaid Lake outside of Falmouth, Kentucky, after receiving a report of a car that had rolled into the water. According to KOCO, the owner of the car had taken his sons to the lake for a fishing trip, never imagining the dangerous turn the day would take.
Two of the man’s sons were in the car alone when the vehicle somehow slipped into neutral and rolled forward down a steep incline, ending up in the lake.
The 8-year-old was able to climb from the car before it sank, but the 5-year-old boy became trapped.
Frantic, the boys’ father dove into the water in an effort to rescue them, attracting the attention of a nearby park ranger, Jeremy Cook. Seeing what had unfolded, Cook immediately called for backup.
The father was able to rescue the 8-year-old from the top of the car. However, by the time first responders arrived, the car had already been submerged for around five minutes with the 5-year-old still inside.
“When you get a call like that, in the situation it was, you’re thinking that you’re in a recovery situation, not a rescue,” Falmouth volunteer firefighter Lt. John Lucas said. The rescuers never expected that the boy would survive the incident.
Lucas, along with Falmouth Police Officer Mark McClure, dove into the lake, trying to reach the vehicle.
But visibility in the cloudy lake water was limited to a few inches.
Cook was already at the car, punching and trying to break a window to retrieve the little boy. The pressure from the water made doing so incredibly difficult.
McClure, however, was equipped with a special knife designed for this exact purpose — a gift his girlfriend had given him just two weeks earlier.
The group of men was acutely aware of the seconds racing by as they worked.
“I knew we were running out of time, especially with a car fully submerged,” Lucas told KOCO.
“Officer Cook, he would go down and would feel around and when he came up for breaths, I would go down and feel around,” he added.
With the window now open, Cook managed to feel his way halfway into the vehicle. Grabbing hold of one of the boy’s limbs, he tried to pull the 5-year-old free. But somehow, the child was stuck.
Desperate for air, Cook returned to the surface with minor cuts and an injured tendon. At this point, the boy had been underwater for about ten minutes.
The park ranger told WKRC that he started to pray. “Please don’t let this be the day I die Lord. I came back up and was gasping,” he said.
He was running out of energy, but not determination.
“I wasn’t leaving the bottom of that lake without the child,” Cook said.
“I just said ‘he’s there he’s under me. Go get him somebody go get him,'” he added. “And that’s when Lucas went back down.”
Lucas managed to grab hold of the child and free him from the car.
“As I was pulling him up out of the water, I seen the little fellow’s eyes open up and look at me and I had the cold chill come at me, and I knew it was going to be good,” Lucas said.
The boy was breathing and talking when they reached the surface, having survived on the air that formed in a bubble while the vehicle was submerged.
WKRC reported that the boy escaped relatively unharmed. Given the circumstances, his survival appears to have been nothing less than a miracle.
The boy’s rescuers are staying humble, giving credit to God.
“I can’t take no credit,” Lucas said. “I don’t think any of us can. I think the good Lord had his hands on that boy.”
“It was a miracle and God was with us all Sunday,” Cook added.
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