Cameron Granger was driving along Schubert Drive in Kamloops, B.C., around 6:30 p.m. PT Sunday when he saw people waving frantically and trying to get people’s attention.
He was one of three bystanders who dove into the North Thompson River to try to save the occupants of a car that had plunged into the river’s fast-flowing waters.
“I essentially did a 180, went back down the road … and essentially just hightailed it down the embankment and jumped into the water,” Granger recalled.
Granger said another bystander broke a car window and pulled a woman out of the vehicle. He then pulled the woman to safety while up to his knees in water.
“I was just doing what I would want somebody else to do for me, I suppose — just instinct,” he said.
“For a moment there, I don’t think either of us were really sure if we were going to make it out of there, but I definitely wanted to do my best to make sure we could change that situation,” Granger added.
While a 21-year-old woman was successfully rescued from the car, officials say a 24-year-old woman is presumed to have drowned.
One of the bystanders involved in the rescue was also hospitalized.
Search-and-rescue officials say they’re temporarily suspending the search for the car as visibility and river levels are unsafe for crews.
Diana Gerlof, a spokesperson for Kamloops Search and Rescue, told CBC’s Daybreak Kamloops that the river is six to eight metres deep in spots as it is swollen from spring snowmelt.
She said Kamloops Search and Rescue and RCMP would co-ordinate and resume search efforts at a later date.
“Visibility also makes it hard for drones and … RCMP helicopter to see anything in the water at the moment,” she said on Tuesday morning.
“We know the place where it almost fully submerged. So that will help us … give us a start, basically.”
Bystanders jump into North Thompson River to rescue passengers after vehicle crash
The car went off the road near Schubert Drive and Birch Avenue, close to where Natasha Winston lives with her 72-year-old husband, Pierre Beaulieu.
Winston said Beaulieu was another of the bystanders who dove into the water, describing the rescue as a “blur” after he disappeared from the house for 20 minutes.
“He went racing down the road, trying to find something to get into the river without hurting himself,” she said.
“He found a big hunk of wood to try and reach the people, to get them out of this.”
Winston said the bank of the river was very muddy and steep, and her husband managed to rescue the person who broke the car’s window with the aid of harnesses provided by rescue personnel.
She said that bystander deserves to be called a “real hero” for helping get the 21-year-old woman to safety and dragging her out of the car.
“When my husband was holding him, he was unconscious at that point, so he barely made it. He was dragged out of the water,” Winston said.
Winston said the experience was traumatic for everyone involved, and she has started a memorial near a bench where the car went off the road and into the river.
“I think there’s just a lot of hope that they’ll still find the person that was lost and, yeah, it’s hard,” she said.
