Watch: Md. water rescue team saves driver from sinking car during training exercise

Callan Tansill-Suddath
The Aegis

HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — A filmed training exercise that was aimed to produce a volunteer recruitment video took a serious turn on Sunday when the Susquehanna Hose Company were called to rescue a man from a submerged car at Tydings Park in Havre de Grace.

The Susquehanna Hose Company's Fire Rescue Boat and Dive Team were in the water conducting a rescue drill at Tydings Park when a car drove off the marina parking lot, trapping the driver.

Lieutenant Alex Jackson smashed the driver's window, and Captain Mary Walsh — who was already wearing the appropriate rescue attire — extricated the driver from his vehicle before it submerged.

"If the car had driven in only a few seconds later they would have hit the boat," Scott Hurst, chief of the Susquehanna Hose Company, told The Aegis.

Hurst also credits the First Arriving film crew for the role they played in creating the video.

He says this video can also now educate people on how quickly things can escalate when a car goes underwater.

"It would have probably been an unfortunate and different outcome if we weren't right there," Hurst said.

The driver was taken by the Havre de Grace Ambulance Corps to Johns Hopkins Bayview Trauma Center. Hurst says he is stable condition.

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