BALTIMORE — Two people are being treated at a hospital after a vehicle plunged into the water at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor late Wednesday afternoon, Baltimore Police said.
The vehicle was driven into the water around 4:25 p.m. at the 700 block of East Pratt Street. The driver was experiencing a mental health crisis, police said.
Another person, identified as a sous-chef at Phillips Seafood, dived into the water and broke open a window to rescue the driver. He was also hospitalized, police said.
“He’s all cut up and in the emergency room,” Michelle Torres, a marketing director at Phillips, said. The employee was leaving work for the day when he dove in, she said.
“It was a natural thing for him to do. It was just his character,” Torres said.
“He risked his whole life to save that man,” said Jeremiah Mayo, an 18-year-old Digital Harbor High School student who witnessed the rescue.
Three divers from the Baltimore Police’s Underwater Recovery Team suited up in scuba gear and entered the harbor water around 6 p.m.
Their first attempt to tow the car out failed as the hook tied to a front tire snapped a few feet from the surface. On the second attempt, divers tied hooks to both back tires, and a tow truck was able to pull the vehicle out of the water and onto the sidewalk.
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