HYRUM, Utah — The woman saved by an off-duty firefighter after her truck crashed into Tremonton canal has made an incredible recovery after being hospitalized in extremely critical condition last month.
Almost six weeks ago, nobody knew if Cynthia Bagley would be alive weeks after crashing her truck while traveling to get cereal for her grandchildren.
"I wanted to make sure my grandchildren got cereal," Bagley recalled Tuesday. "I remember leaving home and I remember a dark road that was shiny from the rain."
Although she remembers just a few details from the accident, Bagley said she experienced feelings she'll never forget in the minutes she spent submerged underwater in the canal.
"It was very warm, relaxed, and beautiful," she said. "I'd seen one of my aunts and cousins that had passed, and my best friend that died from cancer four years ago; she's the one that told me I had to come back, that it wasn't my time."
The off-duty firefighter, James Munns, dove into the canal and used his pocketknife to cut the seatbelt and rescue Bagley.
Bagley spent two weeks in the hospital, including one in ICU, and credits the hospital's "angels" for helping her make an incredible recovery.
"Somebody had videotaped me walking in the halls and I had told the nurse I knew her from giving me my breathing treatments, and the first thing I said to her is I don't want to die and she said, 'No, you're not going to die,'" Bagley said.
In the weeks since the accident, the cereal company donated over a 100 bags of cereal to Bagley's family and she has reunited with Munns, who she calls her hero.
"He says he's not a hero, but he is a hero. He jumped in that water, and he cut my seatbelt and he pulled me out," she explained. "One thing that was funny that he had said was that after the sheriff had gotten me out and him got me to the shore. The radio on the truck went and started playing a song, and I'm huge into music"
Munns was thrilled to hear about Bagley's recovery.
“As a fireman we usually don’t get updates on patients, so it’s nice to be able to get a good one and it’s great to be able to get to meet a patient in person after they make such an incredible recovery. Especially when you didn’t think that there was going to be a good outcome from the accident,” he said.
Now the loving mother and grandmother is back home in Hyrum with an even greater zest for life that can be seen in her smile and eyes.
"It's meant a lot to me to know we have ground angels, air angels and the people that prayed for me." she said. "I wanted to do this interview because there's so much war, hate, and death in this world.
"I wanted something happy to come out of this."
