A Good Samaritan put himself in danger to rescue a driver on Wednesday in New Orleans, Louisiana, during Hurricane Francine’s flash floods.
The incident happened at the Canal Street Underpass when a driver went around barricades and moved slowly through water that reached up to his truck’s windows, WDSU reported.
A reporter from the outlet, Jonah Gilmore, was live behind the camera when he realized the situation was getting worse. He alerted a police officer, but someone else ultimately saved the driver.
That man, Miles Crawford, saw what was happening and ran home to get a tool to help in the rescue.
Video footage shows the moments before Crawford appears, with the truck moving slowly through the high waters.
“Let’s see if this vehicle gets stalled right here,” Gilmore says from behind the camera. When the truck is nearly underwater, Gilmore says the driver is trapped inside it, but the police officer is trying to help.
Crawford then shows up at the scene with a tool to break the window. He is seen removing his shoes before wading chest-deep into the water. When he makes it to the truck, he breaks the window with the tool, and the driver is seen crawling out.
At one point, the driver falls into the water, but Crawford is there to catch him and drag him to safety.
When asked why he performed such a dangerous rescue, Crawford tells Gilmore, “I just had to go down there and do it. I’m a nurse. Gotta save lives, right?”
Per Fox Weather, Francine was downgraded to a tropical depression on Thursday after raging as a Category 2 hurricane on Wednesday.
The storm’s 100-mile-per-hour winds tore off roofs, trapped residents inside their homes, and brought heavy rain.
Video footage shows a reporter braving the hurricane in Morgan City:
“The eye of then-Hurricane Francine moved onshore at 5 p.m. CT in Terrebonne Parish, pushing hurricane-force wind gusts into southern portions of the state near Baton Rouge,” the Fox report said.
“New Orleans reported wind gusts of 78 and 76 mph, while Dulac reported a 97-mph gust and Eugene Island experienced the highest wind gust at 105 mph,” the outlet noted.
