TREMONTON, Utah — An off-duty firefighter is being called a hero after saving a woman who crashed her truck into a Tremonton canal and was stuck underwater for several minutes.
Cynthia Bagley was on a mission Saturday to get her daughter, Grace, and her grandchildren some special cereal.
"They were selling really big bags of cereal for a dollar or something and she wanted to be the first one there." said Bagley's daughter, Grace Hansen.
Bagley left her house in Logan before the sun peaked over the mountains, but she never made it to the cereal sale.
"We don't know what happened, it's still under investigation, but somehow she ended up in a canal upside down," Hansen explained. "They said she was under the water for a good five to 10 minutes."
Hansen says if it wasn't for James Munns, an off-duty firefighter, and other first responders, she doesn't know if her mom would still be alive today. Munns had just started heading to work at a different fire department when he came across the crash near 11200 North and 11000 West.
"There were some people there, so I stopped and asked them 'Is there somebody in there?' and they said 'Yes!'," Munns recalled.
Munns' lifesaving instincts kicked in and within seconds he was in the cold water.
"They were seat belted in, so they were stuck under the water," said Munns. "I used my pocketknife cut the seatbelt in two different places then I was able to get them up out of the water."
The firefighter also credited the swift response of other first responders who arrived shortly afterwards and rushed Bagley to the hospital.
Hansen says her mom is still in critical condition as her care team works to get the water out of her lungs, but because of their family's hero, Bagley is around to fight another day.
"I'm not a hero," Munns implored. "I was just doing what I thought was right. God puts people in certain places at certain times, our hearts go out to them."
Nevertheless, Hansen can't thank Munns enough.
"If it wasn't for you and your actions to get my mom out and perform CPR, she wouldn't be there, we would've lost my mom and because of you we still have her right now," she said.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help with Bagley's medical expenses.
