SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — Three young children were inside a truck when it started to roll into the Smith and Morehouse Reservoir in Summit County Monday evening. One of the kids is fighting for his life.
A family of six — the parents, three kids and their grandfather — went to the reservoir to spend a couple of days. But officials said while they were either loading or offloading their kayaks from their Dodge pickup truck, the truck started to roll into the water. Two 9-year-old boys and a 2-year-old girl were still inside.
One of the 9-year-old boys was able to get out himself, and the grandfather was able to get the 2-year-old girl out before the truck was submerged. But the other 9-year-old was stuck in the cab underwater for about 10 minutes before he was pulled out of the water by a retired park ranger saw what happened.
Joe Donnell was a park ranger and emergency responder for 25 years. He was recreating in the area with his family.
“I was actually really close to the boat ramp when I noticed a pickup truck just start to go down a boat ramp and people chasing after it yelling and screaming,” said Donnell.
When he found out a little boy was still inside the car, he knew what he needed to do, saying he was just in the right place at the right time.
“I wasn’t going to stop till I found him. I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I just went to the boat ramp and said, 'Oh well, we’ll wait for the tow truck,' so I kept diving," he said.
Donnell is a trained swimmer and knew how to respond to the situation. He didn’t even think twice before jumping in to save the boy.
“As an emergency responder, you are trained to respond — that’s what you do,” he added.
Donnell said when he stood on the roof of the truck, the water was almost his height. He says it was “scary” jumping in because there was no visibility. He added that he had to dive in about 6 to 7 times before he actually found the boy.
“I finally swam down [and] I found him. I actually reached up way up here, could feel something floating by the windshield," he said. "I felt clothing, I grabbed him, I pulled him out. I held him to my chest and I swam backwards out of the truck to the surface and then took him to shore."
Two bystanders helped give the boy CPR until paramedics and deputies arrived. He was then airlifted to the hospital. The boy was still in critical condition and on life support as of Tuesday morning.
The Summit County Sherriff’s Office said they are still investigating to figure out what exactly led to this happening.
“We have a lot of things to try to figure out,” said Capt. Andrew Wright with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. “If it was an oversight being left in neutral, if [the truck] actually had mechanical failure. But as you can imagine, parents, grandfather are all very distraught as well as a lot of first responders that had to go through this traumatic experience."
Wright said incidents like this don’t usually happen in the area.
“A case like this where a vehicle has gone underwater with three children inside — in my 19 years, I’ve never seen that happen in Summit County,” he said.
“My thoughts go out to the family. My prayer is now that he survives. That’s what I want,” said Donnell.
