As Hurricane Francine barreled through south-east Louisiana, officials urged residents to watch out for each other – and a local emergency room nurse put that advice into action by using a hammer to save the life of a motorist who had become submerged in floodwaters.
The New Orleans NBC affiliate WDSU aired the rescue by Miles Crawford on live television in what was one of the most dramatic moments to result from the category 2 storm that inflicted widespread power outages, among other impacts on the Gulf coast and inland.
“I just had to go in there and do it – I’m a nurse, so gotta save lives, right?” Crawford said to the station as he emerged from the floodwaters.
Crawford thrust himself into the remarkable circumstances after glancing outside his home in New Orleans’ Lakeview neighborhood to watch Francine’s wind and rain whip by. He first noticed a police officer near a railroad underpass that floods constantly, and then he received a text message from his brother that said someone had gotten stuck after driving into the water under the overpass, as he told the Times-Picayune newspaper.
The information prompted Crawford to approach both the police as well as a WDSU reporter at the scene to see if he could offer help, saying he had medical supplies with him. And with the front of the motorist’s truck quickly sinking, Crawford ran back to his house, grabbed a hammer and returned to the vehicle wearing a gray, hooded rain jacket.
He immediately smashed the rear driver’s side window of the truck with the hammer while he rested his weight on the vehicle’s bed. After several seconds, the driver stuck his head through the window, and Crawford grabbed hold of the motorist’s jacket to free him from the vehicle.
The driver fell headlong into the flash flooding at one point, but Crawford tugged him back above the surface of the water. Crawford was literally neck-deep in the floodwater at that point. But he and the motorist were able to reach safety by grasping a nearby rail as police and firefighters approached the pair of men to take over the rescue from Crawford.
In a statement provided to the Guardian, New Orleans police said the motorist had gone against traffic to end up under the flooded train trestle despite marked patrol cars, barricades and signs admonishing passersby about the high water level.
First responders brought the driver to a local hospital for evaluation, and he did not have any injuries, said the statement from police, which made it a point to mention Crawford’s “tremendous bravery”.
The entire episode caused police to renew warnings about the importance of obeying traffic laws and the need for people to protect themselves during dangerous weather. Yet it also led to Crawford being feted as a hero as footage of his courage went viral among those tracking Francine’s effects.
Crawford explained to WDSU that his past experience as a nurse at New Orleans’ University Medical Center – which frequently treats some of the area’s most gravely wounded trauma patients – got him accustomed “to high stress … on a daily basis”.
He told the Times-Picayune that he is now participating in a nurse practitioner program focused on mental health – and compared to that, breaking a submerged truck’s window didn’t feel like the big deal it turned out to be.
“Honestly, that’s easy compared to what I do on a daily basis,” Crawford said.
Francine triggered coastal and in-land flash flooding while also leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity after crashing onshore on Wednesday evening about 30 miles (50km) south-west of Morgan City, Louisiana. There had been no deaths or injuries associated with the storm in its immediate aftermath.
