By By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE
Staff Writer
Two local men were involved in a dramatic rescue Friday morning, pulling a man from a submerged vehicle and apparently saving his life.
On their way to work, Mike Johnson of Cherry Run Road and Troy Hencye of Bear Grass stopped to pull the man from a submerged car, with that driver nearly drowning. Hencye identified the man as John Harrison.
Johnson, an assistant manager at Dairy Queen in Williamston, was trying to drive to work about 7:25 a.m. Friday when he spotted a car passing through moving water.
Harrison was attempting to motor through floodwaters near a turnoff to N.C. Highway 903.
“I was going to see if they’d make it,” Johnson said. “If they’d make it, I’d go through.”
Johnson realized Harrison wasn’t going to make it through the water when one of the car’s headlights blinked out.
“And I thought, ‘Oh, no,’” Johnson remarked.
Hencye, who works in construction, was driving his truck behind Harrison in the imperiled car when the car began to slip off of the road and into a ditch.
“The right side of his car kind of got swept off the road a little bit,” he said. “It looked like his car was kind of floating.”
As the car began to sink, Hencye got out of his truck, quickly removed his shoes, socks and shirt and plunged into the flood.
“About the second step I had taken, the bottom dropped out and I was in over my head,” Hencye said.
He swam to the sinking car and reached in through the open driver’s side window.
Johnson called his boss and asked to have a 911 call made. After that, he, too, ran toward the car.
“About halfway through that puddle it was thigh deep, and I could not run,” Johnson said. “The best I could do was walk fast.”
According to Johnson, Hencye attempted to open the car door and free Harrison.
“At that point, the front of the car went under water and the inside was filling up,” Hencye related. “Next thing I know, the water’s up to (the driver’s) neck, and he just went under.”
Desperate to free Harrison, Hencye went under two or three times, struggling to pull the driver from the car.
“The third time I went down there I just like pulled on him,” he continued. “I honestly thought the guy was dead. I pulled on him, and he came out the window.”
Johnson grabbed Harrison and pulled him away from the deep water.
The two volunteer rescuers, neither of whom had ever been in such a situation before, thought they might have to perform CPR on the freed man, but he came to on his own.
There, on the side of the road, the trio awaited rescue personnel, which had some difficulty making it over flooded roadways.
“I don’t know, it was just hairy,” Johnson said. “It was really scary.”
Hencye said his “instincts just took over.”
“I’m a good swimmer,” he said, adding he was a surfer. “I was born and raised in Florida.”
Hencye and Johnson indicated the experience left them shaken, but grateful the extracted driver survived.
“If he had died, I don’t know what I would’ve done,” Hencye said.
Harrison was listed in stable condition at Beaufort County Medical Center, said Pam Shadle, spokeswoman for BCMC, said Friday.
Jim Evans, assistant chief of Clark’s Neck Volunteer Fire Department, verified that the rescue took place.
The department’s personnel had a tough time making it to the scene, he said.
“Every road was flooded that you tried to go around,” Evans pointed out.
Evans said he drove to the flooded car on a fire truck and could see no more than a shadow of the vehicle at the scene. He added that he appreciated the help rendered by Hencye and Johnson.
“If they hadn’t pulled him out, he would not be with us today,” Evans said.