Youths to the rescue

Having ignored calls by a group of youths to turn back, a motorist found himself being swept away by flood water that rushed along Halls Road, St Michael yesterday morning.
Not angered by the driver’s dismissal of their concerns, the four good Samaritans of Halls Road jumped into action in the nick of time, securing the uncontrollable car to a tree with a towing strap. The disoriented driver had been thrown a lifeline.
What the youths found strange was the man’s clinging to his package of bread and cheese as he was being carried off by the water.
Vernon Theodore, spokesman for the rescuing four who included Wayne and Sean Pilgrim and Kemar Small, recalled the events.
The 28-year-old Portvale worker said he was by the Globe Cinema when he saw the car driver following a “4×4 Jeep”.
The driver was warned his vehicle’s muffler was underwater and the car was about to float.
“[But] he kept on driving and the car started to float, heading to the canal [just a few metres away].
“The Jeep man turned round and went back and left him. We [were] telling [the stranded driver] to jump out of the car and the man would not come out.
“The man juck out a pack of bread and cheese; he was saving the bread and cheese . . . like he got to make sure it come home.
“So when the car get close and we get him out, we had to tie it to a tree, so that it would not go down in the canal,” Theodore said.
 “[The driver’s] head was underwater, his foot and bread and cheese up in the air.
“He was underwater drowning and he got bread and cheese in the air,” he added.