Francis intensive care unit around 1 p.m. The man who had been submerged in the van was listed in critical but stable condition at Ascension Via Christi St. The cuts happened while he was reaching in through the broken glass. He also had other cuts that were cleaned and glued. He needed 14 stitches on a finger on his left hand, left wrist and right hand. He was rushed to the hospital.Īs the scene cleared, Harris noticed he had blood all over his arms. They were able to get the man breathing before EMS arrived.Įveryone helped to get the man on a stretcher and up the steep hill. "I think it was 100 percent divine appointment." "The guy that was there, myself and Kingery, it was purposeful," he said. Based on the size of the man, Harris said, not one or two of them could have done it. "It seemed like forever but after a couple minutes the victim was able to be pulled out of the vehicle," Kingery said in a phone interview later. Kingery was on the other side of the van, searching as well. "You got him, you got him," Harris yelled back, warning Hicks to be careful of cutting the man on the glass while the two pulled him from the van. "Right here, right here, right here," Hicks told Harris as he pulled the man up and got his head above water. He added that it was by the "grace of God he happened to still be in that seat."īody cam video tells the next part of the story: "It was pure luck, pure luck I grabbed at the right spot." "I'm pretty tall so I got some pretty long arms and I was giving everything I had to get down as far as I could in there and grab ahold of anything I could get my arms on," Hicks said, adding he reached in a few times before he got the man. Harris was getting ready to break the front passenger window when Hicks told Harris that he thought he had the man. Hicks then went back to a window Harris had already busted and that they had both already checked. Hicks said he yelled to the other passengers, asking where the man had been sitting. Video shows Harris propped his torso on the sill of the broken glass as he tried to reach further down into the van. Harris moved to the next window and did the same thing, then again a third time. ![]() Harris said he moved to the passenger side of the vehicle and used a window break tool to bust out a window. Kingery saw movement but called out a code blue, meaning unresponsive, as he ran into the water to help. Another passenger was with the one on the ground. Kingery saw three passengers who appeared OK and a fourth laying face down, who Kingery thinks was ejected from the vehicle. Kingery arrived shortly after Harris did. He guessed the cabin was about 80% full of water. Harris tried to go to the front of the van but realized, with the depth of the water, mud and additional weight he carried, he could drown. Harris treaded through and even fell in the water as he moved around the van.īody cam video shows Harris and Hicks moving through roughly waist-high water as the van's horn continued to blare. Navy but was about to use them for the first time in a real-life situation. Harris had learned water rescue techniques in the U.S. The passengers who had escaped the van told Harris one person was still inside. ![]() Kingery, a minute behind him, heard the call change. Harris called off his traffic stop and alerted that he needed fire and EMS for a submerged vehicle. Hicks was already running down to the lake. He then looked down to the lake just off the highway and saw the overturned van. Then, his eyes were drawn to Hicks and his daughter, who were getting out of their truck. Harris followed the vehicle with the traffic infraction as it took the I-135 south to I-235 south ramp. He stopped, reversed and agreed with his daughter that she should call 911. Meanwhile, Josh Hicks, a Nebraska man who works HVAC and was in town with his 17-year-old daughter for a softball tournament, saw the accident in his rearview mirror. He was headed back to the station when he saw a traffic infraction and decided to pull the driver over.ĭeputy Nathan Kingery was headed the other direction on I-135, saw Harris and prepared to turn around to help with the stop. Harris had agreed to work past his shift. "100 percent without a shadow of a doubt this was completely divine and it was all for God's glory," he said. What happened next is the miracle, says Deputy Clinton Harris. The fifth was trapped underwater inside the van. Two Sedgwick County deputies and a bystander who pulled an unconscious man from a van overturned in a lake say what happened was a miracle.įive Wichita men were injured when their 2010 Ford van left the I-235 south ramp from I-135 south and landed in a lake Tuesday evening.Īll but one of the men were ejected or able to get themselves out.
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