It seemed almost like fate when newspaper reporter, Simon Maude was on assignment near Northcote Point in Auckland, New Zealand. Maude recorded a woman’s BMW, which drove directly into the water and then rushed to her aid before time ran out.
Maude told Yahoo News “I was sort of battling my reporter instincts versus just being a human being and helping out. When I got down there and saw what was happening, there were already four people in the water, so me getting in the water wasn’t going to help.”
While police officers and civilians also jumped into the water to help rescue the woman, they found that the car was quickly flooding and that the doors would not budge, because of the constant pressure. The Police officer then took out his batton, but that still was not enough to break the glass.
Maude, who works for Auckland’s North Shore, went on to recall the event further by stating, “I saw the policemen having difficulty breaking the windows, so I put down my camera and asked them what they needed. They needed a rock, so I gave them one, and they went back to work and I went back to work.”
That rock essentially saved the woman’s life because it was the force needed to break the car’s window allowing the rescuers to save the woman from drowning.
Constable Paul Watts told reporters that is was a mere 30 or 40 seconds after breaking the glass that they were able to get her out and stated, “I’d say she probably only had maximum probably another minute, minute-and-a-half if she hadn’t gotten out.”
Maude seems very humbled by his act of heroism stating, “It could’ve been anyone else, it was just plain chance that I was in the area. In this day and age, everybody’s got a camera. It just happened to be me.”
Photo By: Fairfax New Zealand
